


Enough to Go Around

by Merrypaws



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mech Preg, Negotiations, Romance, Spark Sex, Sticky Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:44:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merrypaws/pseuds/Merrypaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skyfire finds himself as the unwilling object of two mechs' affections. And there's only so much even a pacifist like him is willing to put up with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In demand

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever smut story, written in response to a [prompt on the Transformers kink meme.](http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/3587.html?thread=4391939#t4391939)

Somewhere in the wilderness of the northwest corner of the United States, a group of rather haggard looking metallic beings gathered. No words of greeting were spoken, but the air was thick with the feel of shared resignation. It wasn’t until pinkish liquid in (relatively) small cube shaped containers had been passed to everyone and all members of the group had folded out into their bipedal forms that the silence was broken:

“So… Yours too?”

“Yeah. Suppose it was a matter of time, but… you know.”

“Yeah. Denial is such a powerful thing.”

A red-plated one next to the last speaker just grunted and took a hefty swing from his cube. The yellow one next to him turned to one of the others.

“You got any idea who your boss is targeting?”

“Uh-huh. One of yours. A decent mech, I guess. Maybe it’ll work out.”

Four heads perked up some. “One of ours? Who?”

“The white flyer. The really big one.”

“Gotta admit, I didn’t think boss would be the type to go for quantity over quality.” a bluish-purple one commented to the other red-visored one, earning a chuckle from their side of the circle.

“How ‘bout your mech?”

The question was met with a horrified silence. It only took a click for the proverbial light bulb to blink on.

“They’re both… Aw, frag.”

 

*****

“Primus, Skyfire, what’s gotten you so jumpy? Have Red Alert’s glitches turned infective or something?”

The Valkyrie shuttle peeled himself sheepishly from the wall (and wasn’t that a sight in itself) where he had flattened himself moments earlier at the sudden appearance of the Autobot TIC.

“Ah, sorry Jazz. I’ve… kind of been on the edge lately.”

“On the edge? Mech, you’re probably the most laid back bot I’ve ever met save for Beachcomber, and that’s after he’s been puffing the good stuff. What could possibly get to you?”

“Well, as of late, Blaster. And… something else.”

“Blaster? Is it the music? Or did he let his cassettes loose in your lab?”

“No! It’s just that he’s been acting… strangely lately. He shows up at my lab at random, making small talk or asking about my projects, but when I answer him, he just stares at me with this weird look on his face. Then he starts praising me about how smart and talented I am, but I can’t shake the feeling he hasn’t even heard a word of what I said.”

Jazz’ visor flickered in a way that usually equaled blinking. “Okay, that’s… odd.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be so bad, but…”

“What?”

“I… Look, there’s no way of saying this without sounding completely crazy, but I keep feeling like I’m… being watched. And sometimes, I could swear I hear things.”

Another blink-flicker. “Things?”

“Yes, like… Like when I might absently put some tool down in my lab, then when I start looking for it again, I can clearly hear someone saying: ‘It’s on the table behind you.’ Or when I figure out some new formula, someone whispers ‘I knew you could do it’ in my audio, but there’s no one there. And… And sometimes, when I think to myself ‘Oh I wish I had this metal alloy or that ore to experiment with’, the very next day it just mysteriously appears in my lab.”

Even Jazz, ever ready with a joke or a light-sparked quip, had trouble coming up with anything to say about that. “Well… slag.”

“Tell me about it.” Skyfire rubbed both of his servos over his face. “Do you think I’m just going crazy?”

“Given that you aren’t the type to get worked up over nothing, and that you aren’t showing any other signs of cracking up, I somehow doubt that.” the Special Ops mech placed a comforting servo on the large scientist’s wrist.

“Tell you what, I’ll talk to Red Alert, and we’ll check your lab for bugs or any other foul play. We’ll get to the bottom of this, you have my word.”

Skyfire smiled, relieved. “Thanks, Jazz.”

“Great! I’ll see you later.” Jazz gave the large arm a final pat for good measure before turning and walking away.

Skyfire stood, watching him go, when he suddenly winced. 

I so did NOT just hear someone growling…

 

*****

Alarms were blaring harshly away inside the Ark, and mechs all over the Autobot base stopped in their tracks, looking to one another in surprise. The Decepticons had been very quiet (Suspiciously so, Red Alert had insisted.) ever since their most recent defeat, several orns ago now. What could prompt them to a new raid so soon?

“What’s going on?” Bumblebee asked no one in particular.

“I have no idea.” Hound replied. 

“We’re under attack! We’re under attack!” Red Alert’s voice carried from the direction of the monitor room, and Inferno was fighting his way against the tide of mechs going the other way to get in and talk the Chief of Security down.

“Decepticon activity within the perimeter! All units to battle stations!” Prowl’s voice carried over the general din.

The yellow mini shared a startled look with Hound and Mirage, who had now joined them. “They’re crazy enough to attack the Ark, now?”

“This is certainly unexpected.” the former noblemech muttered. “What could they be up to?”

“Only one way to find out.” Hound quipped as he transformed. Bumblebee and Mirage quickly moved to follow, and together they sped out of the Ark, following the dust trail of their fellow Autobots who were headed for the rockier area near the foot of the mountain. 

But as the three arrived, instead of a battle they found the others standing in a semi-circle around a single Decepticon. Who happened to be none other than…

“Soundwave?”

Indeed, the Decepticon TIC was standing with his back to the cliff side, his head moving sharply from side to side as he watched the surrounding Autobots. Higher up on the cliff the Decepticon cassettes were peeking over and around the jagged rock formations. Optimus Prime, ever the diplomat, stepped forward to speak:

“Soundwave, you are surrounded and outnumbered. Whatever plan Megatron had is obviously moot now. Surrender peacefully and you or your cassettes will not be harmed.”

Soundwave watched the Autobot leader silently for a moment. “…Assumption: Decepticon presence near the Ark by Megatron’s order: faulty.”

Ironhide glanced sideways at his fellow officers. “Did he just say…?”

“… that you’re not here on Megatron’s order?” Jazz finished incredulously, addressing the red-visored mech.

“Affirmative.”

Sideswipe looked up at the cassettes huddled on the cliff. “Is he for real?”

Frenzy held up his servos. “Sorry Boss, but you’re gonna have to explain this one.”

“Cassettes: loyalty algorithms compromised.” even in straight monotone Soundwave managed to sound sullen.

“Long-range scans show no other Decepticon energy signatures, save for the cassettes. Maybe we should-“ Prowl started, only to be violently showed aside as Blaster stomped past him and stopped only a few paces away from the Decepticon, his engine growling.

“Okay, you glitched excuse of a junk-drone, listen up! This is my turf, so you just get your wheels turning and get lost!

Soundwave’s servos opened and closed again, and he took a moment before answering in his usual monotone:

“Demand: unacceptable.”

“Who the frag said you get to accept it or not? I told you to beat it, slagger! And while you’re at it, tell those little pieces of scrap you call cassettes to quit spying on my mech!”

Now the blue tape deck’s vocalizer sputtered static for a few seconds before he replied, honest incredulity seeping into his voice: 

“Your mech?” Then he seemed to catch himself and returned to his usual non-tone: “Status: unclaimed.”

“And that means every deadbeat like yourself can make free with him?”

“Deadbeat!?” Soundwave’s vocal synthesizer produced a screech of scratchy white noise in response to being forced outside its usual range, before shutting down with a click. 

“I’m the third in command, while the Autobots are only keeping you because they’re afraid to let you loose on their precious organics! You seriously think that’s going to win him over?” the blue Decepticon bellowed, finally resorting to his real voice.

The rest of the Autobots were completely bewildered by now. 

“Who are they talking about?” Bluestreak vocalized everyone’s thoughts.

Meanwhile, the tape decks seemed to be just getting warmed up.

“Take the hint already, nobody wants your creepy, mind-reading aft here! So scram, tramp!”

“Tramp? Do tell, who was it that I saw fooling around with the Aerialbots not a week before the heat cycle started?”

Heat cycle? Many bots shared glances. Most of them had if not experienced then at least witnessed the overwhelming need to mate and procreate at some point of their lives, but this was off the charts. Both of the tape decks seemed to have gone through a complete personality change. Those who were closest turned to look at Ratchet, who could only shrug. The two tape decks were unlike any other frame types, who knew how the frag they worked?

“How are you planning to pass yourself for proper mate potential? You don’t even know what responsibility means! You can barely keep track of your own cassettes!” Soundwave jabbed a finger at Blaster’s face.

“You should talk! All that freaky telepathic stalking must be sooo alluring. Besides, how long it’s been since you actually did any real work instead of just sitting on your aft at the bottom of the ocean while sending your little minions to spy on us?” the Autobot snorted back.

“At least my idea of work doesn’t involve getting myself qualified as walking noise pollution!” 

“Well, at least I can talk to him without having to hide behind synthesized voice and a mask!”

“Slagging shame, maybe you should. It would save us all from the trauma.”

“Oh, really..!”

Somewhere amid the flying insults, some circuits managed to connect in Jazz’ processor.

“Hold on, Skyfire mentioned earlier that Blaster’s been borderline stalking him for some time now…”

As one, all the bots present turned to look at the shuttle, who could only stand there with a poleaxed look on his face.

“So, if they’re in heat right now, then doesn’t that mean that they both want…” Ironhide trailed off, looking back and forth between the snarking mechs and the giant flyer.

Skyfire could only slump slightly in horrified realization. “It… would explain a lot.”

As mechs all around him were absorbing the disturbing news with various twitches and other involuntary reactions, the shuttle could only stare at the arguing mechs at utter loss. He could feel the optics of his fellow Autobots on him but willed himself not to react, even when either of the combatants made any reference to ‘their mech’. Inwardly he was cringing for all he was worth. Primus, was this really necessary? Didn’t it occur to either of them to just come up and talk to him? Maybe tell him straight up what was going on, just so he wouldn’t have been so confused over it? Did they even care? Was he just supposed to stand here and wait for the winner of the argument to come and sweep him off his pedes?

But even as Skyfire was trying to wrap his processor around the situation at hand, he noticed Blaster shooting a look at him. When the red bot noticed he had the shuttle’s attention, he smiled slightly and moved to step sideways past Soundwave, but the Decepticon stepped angrily between them. 

Skyfire frowned. Wait a nano-click, were they-

Even as the thought occurred to him, he caught Soundwave glancing in his direction, and when the Decepticon noticed the shuttle looking his way, he quickly straightened in a way that made the sun gleam over the angles of his chassis before delivering the next scathing jab at his rival, who had noticed the action and was visibly bristling.

They were. By Primus, the two had driven him to a near mental breakdown over the last few weeks, lowered him to the status of a shiny trinket they could just squabble over in front of his entire faction, and overall acted as if his opinion on the matter didn’t make any difference!

And to top it off, they had the audacity to still try and flirt with him while they were at it!

He would have been flattered over the lengths they went to in order to catch his attention, if his CPU wasn’t screaming with the humiliation.

While Skyfire had been silently fuming, the argument seemed to have come to a head as Blaster gave up all pretense of logic and civilized behavior and lunged at the blue Decepticon. They collided with a resonant clang of metal on metal and went down in a snarling heap, each rolling and grappling to gain the upper hand.

“You know, if this wasn’t so fragging disturbing, it would be funny as Pit.” Sunstreaker commented offhand as everyone stepped back to avoid being drawn into the brawl.

Suddenly the distant sound of jet engines alerted the assembled Autobots to the arrival of more company, and sure enough, a moment later the Decepticon leader himself appeared, the elite trine serving as his honor guard. The cons landed a short distance away, and Megatron strode forward, gnashing his dentas and pointing an accusing finger at his TIC.

“Soundwave! You abandoned your duties and left the base without permission! And now I find you at the enemy base! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!”

Everyone present turned expectantly to the telepath, but he only gave his leader a sideways glance before returning to his fight with Blaster. 

Megatron was completely thrown off the loop by being so blatantly ignored by who he had previously thought to be his most loyal subject, and could only stare with his mouth open for several clicks, his servo still hanging in midair. Eventually, he managed to gather himself and glared at his counterpart.

“Care to explain what is going on, Prime?”

“I’m not sure I want to know, myself.” the red and blue truck replied wearily.

“From what we’ve gathered from the conversation so far, both Blaster and Soundwave got the hots for Skyfire, and have now decided to duke it out to settle the score.” Jazz supplied helpfully.

Megatron looked, if possible, even more flabbergasted. 

"But a - what about - are you - but the – And you’re allowing this?”

Optimus just shrugged. “No one’s tried to shoot anyone yet. All things considered, it’s a vast improvement to the cross-faction relations.” 

The grey mech stared silently at the other, before burying his face into one palm.

“No. You know what? Just no.”

With that, the Decepticon leader turned around, strode up to where the three seekers were now standing, observing the two-mech-melee, and barked: “Soundwave, cease this foolishness immediately! We are returning to the base!” 

Again, the Slagmaker’s order failed to garner any kind of reaction. This time neither of the two tape decks even looked up, apparently determined to claw the paint off one another. Optimus was mildly surprised that the other leader’s dentas weren’t giving off sparks with the way he was gnashing them.

“I have better things to do than play referee for this kind of nonsense! You stop this slag and get your aft over here RIGHT NOW!”

“Go frag yourself!”

In the silence following the blue communications officer’s retort, the snarls and grunts of the combatants were nearly deafening. 

The seekers and the Decepticon cassettes were slowly backing away while throwing horrified glances towards their leader, save for Starscream who looked distinctly amused. The Autobots simply stared.

And Megatron… his face was switching from disbelief to anger to confusion and back again. But even as he was standing otherwise motionless, a subtle trembling started spreading through his frame at the same time as his facial expression was creeping closer and closer to unholy wrath. Finally he was standing there, shaking all over with barely controlled fury, and apparently had made up his mind: 

“That’s it! I have enough traitors in my ranks as is!” he roared and lifted his fusion cannon, aiming it at the tangle of fighting mechs on the ground.

But at the sight of the gun, something clicked almost audibly in Skyfire’s processor, and a dangerous glint flashed in his optics.

Oh, Megatron thought HE’D had enough? The Decepticon leader had simply stood by and barked orders, nothing but a spectator to this farce, while he, Skyfire, had been reduced to a piece of chromed aft to be bickered over like he wasn’t even there.

Oh no, if anyone was entitled to some retribution right now, then by Primus it was him!

Prowl had noticed the Decepticon leader moving and turned around to shout a warning, when suddenly he was interrupted by the ominous sound of crushed metal and a surprised half-grunt, half-yell that sounded suspiciously like the Slagmaker himself. He whipped around again and the scene his optics took in made his CPU trip momentarily.

Skyfire was standing in front of Megatron, one hand clamped around the upraised fusion cannon’s barrel. As the grey mech simply gaped, the flyer calmly removed his hand, revealing a neat, hand-shaped dent where the dark metal had been crushed into a solid lump.

“Oops.” the shuttle intoned in an entirely insincere monotone.

Cliffjumper was the first to reboot, and as such, had the questionable honor of summing up the general consensus:

“Holy slag.”

Ignoring the looks of horrified disbelief on everyone’s faces, Skyfire spun around on his pede, leaving the grey mech staring at his destroyed cannon. He stalked over to the brawling mechs who were still oblivious to everything around them, and knocked them apart with a well-aimed kick. Blaster rolled a short distance before scampering back on his pedes and lunging at Soundwave again, only to be caught in midair. The shuttle set the red tape deck down on his feet, crouched down to his eyelevel and snarled, low and dangerous:

“Don’t. You. Slagging. Dare.”

Then he simply wrapped one huge white arm around the other Autobot, neatly immobilizing him in one move, and stood up again.

“Skyfire, what are you-“ Optimus started, only to interrupt the sentence with a startled ‘eep’ as the white flyer rounded on him, optics narrowed dangerously as he glared down at the Prime like only he could.

”I’m fragging well getting this over with. Got a slagging problem with that?”

Optimus was left frozen and speechless in the wake of that, but the shuttle didn’t wait for an answer, instead turning to Soundwave who was still sitting on the ground, staring at the white flyer in silent awe. Skyfire reached down, weakly squirming Blaster still carried under his arm, and slung the other mech over his shoulder without missing a beat before turning and stomping back into the Ark. 

Silence reigned for some time before Prowl spoke up:

“Sideswipe?”

“Yes?”

“A full week without sanctions if you pass out your good high grade.”

The red Lamborghini pondered for a moment. “Should I just move our stock to the rec room and let everyone help themselves?”

“Sounds good.”

As mechs stared filing towards the entrance (save for Megatron, who still appeared to be catatonic with shock), Rewind turned to Frenzy, looking a bit dazed:

“That went… well, all things considered.”

“Guess so.”

Rumble glanced at the rest of the Autobot cassettes. “Does that mean we’re stuck with you guys now?”

“Dunno, guess that depends on how your boss and ours work out their berth arrangements.” Steeljaw shrugged.

“So… till then?” Buzzsaw tilted his head. 

“Well, I think there was some mention of high grade.”

“… I like you already.”

 

*****

As Skyfire arrived to his quarters, the first thing he did was send a lock code to the door before dropping the two mechs on to the berth and looming over them with his servos on his hips and his wings held in a high, dangerous angle. 

“You know, everyone should know by now that I consider myself a peaceful mech, but I have my limits.”

Blaster and Soundwave squirmed at the icy tone, the Valkyrie shuttle’s optics flashing for the first time the blue of ice. Before, neither of them would have thought that the mild-mannered scientist was truly capable of such murderous cold fury, but now they could see it perfectly, the transformation into something immovable, unconquerable, implacable.

“You both have been doing Pit of a job aggravating me for the past few weeks, and after that scene out front just now I feel pretty slagging tempted to just drag your sorry afts to the stratosphere and drop you on your defunct processors!”

The tape decks huddled closer together under his glare. It had never even crossed their minds that Skyfire might have objections to the situation, all they had been able to think of was settling the score between themselves. Oversight for which they were now paying as they found themselves at the receiving end of the flyer’s wrath.

Skyfire watched as the two visibly shrunk in front of his aggressive reprimands. They were hanging on his every word, optics locked on his face, and their energy fields brushed timidly against his, placating but endlessly needy.

His engine growled in sudden pleasure at the sight of them gazing up at him with such open awe and recognition of right. His size had often incited awe in other mechs, but never this kind of open admiration. It soothed his ire and caused a different sort of heat to build in his circuits.

“But you know what? Fine. You want a piece of this-“ he lifted one servo and trailed it down the length of his torso, teasingly just skirting his interface panel, and his engine rumbled again as the two mechs followed the servo’s path with their optics, enraptured and cooling fans kicking on with a whine. “- you’re gonna have it.”

With that, the flyer closed the dubiously short distance between himself and the berth and leaned over, his arms framing the huddled mechs. 

One hand came up behind Blaster’s helm, yanking the other’s head backwards to give the larger mech better access to the red bot’s mouth as Skyfire started his conquest with the other’s lips. He pushed forward so far that the other had to arch his backstruts, showing his glossa into the smaller mech’s mouth with force that demanded utter submission. Blaster’s startled squeak was swallowed in the heat and pressure, Skyfire apparently bent on mapping the tape deck from the inside out. 

Before the smaller Autobot could gather his wits enough to properly respond, Skyfire abruptly broke the kiss, pulling back and smirking at the dazed look on the red mech’s face. Then he turned to Soundwave, who was frozen to place where he was trapped against the other tape deck’s side by the larger mech’s arm, captive audience to the performance.

The shuttle lifted a servo and tapped one digit meaningfully on the center of the blue tape deck’s mask, equal parts amused and impatient:

“Well?”

With a click of hidden latches the mask parted at the center, folding into the Decepticon’s helm, and with another click and snap the visor followed. Skyfire had to reboot his optics at the face that greeted him. 

The lips that could have been crafted by a master sculptor were parted, letting little gasps of want pass over the dentas that peeked tantalizingly from behind them. And above them, wide, glimmering optics that glowed bright with arousal were set in just the slightest angle, giving them an exotic slant that drew the optic irresistibly back into those mesmerizing crimson depths.

With a growl, the shuttle swooped down and caught those delicious lips with his own, humming in satisfaction as the pliable metal molded to his as easily as its owner to his chassis. Soundwave appeared to be in a frenzy to touch as much of the bigger mech as possible, servos restlessly darting from seam to seam, finding and tweaking cables and sensor nodes as they went.

Skyfire hummed with pleasure, but the sound was suddenly cut off when something tugged at his arm with enough force to dislodge his lips from Soundwave’s. He snapped his head around to see Blaster latched on his arm, insistently tugging as he shot the blue mech a dirty glare.

“Hey, I wasn’t done with that, yet!”

Soundwave opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by being knocked off the berth as Blaster was suddenly pinned down by a giant blur of white. Skyfire crouched over the red bot, his engine positively roaring in annoyance as he deftly captured the smaller mech’s servos and pinned them to the berth above his head.

“I thought I made it very clear who was in charge, here. Didn’t you learn your lesson, yet?”

Blaster’s squeak was nearly drowned by the screech of his overworked cooling fans as the shuttle loomed over him, wings high and energy field snapping aggressively. The tape deck squirmed, trying to burrow deeper into the berth to escape from this god of wrath the other had suddenly become, babbling frantically:

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to - I need you! I can’t bear you touching anyone else, when all I can think about is your servos on me! Tried to be patient, but can’t – Every time I offline my optics I can only dream of you fragging me, your spark burning through mine as you claim me –“

Spark? That gave Skyfire a pause. 

Lust was one thing, but bonding? Was that what this was all about? He glanced to the side, to Soundwave who was kneeling on the floor by the berth, and he could see the same, searing need in the red optics. Reading the question from the shuttle’s optics, or perhaps straight from his processor (he was a telepath, after all), the blue tape deck nodded almost imperceptibly.

“The cycle is… a one-time thing for us.” The words came so haltingly that Skyfire had to wonder how long it had been since the other had had a conversation using his real voice. “We need to find a strong sire for our sparklings. Kind. Protective.” 

The last part was spoken with quiet reverence that made the shuttle suspect that the tape deck wasn’t listing the qualities of an ideal sire, but the qualities of him, specifically. A servo gently touching the side of his face drew his attention back to the mech beneath him, who had used his distraction to free one arm.

“There were times during the war I didn’t think I’d live long enough to go through it, bearing newsparks.” Blaster said, almost distractedly, still stroking the shuttle’s face. “But I always knew what I’d like them to be like. And when you joined us… You’re one of the best mechs I’ve ever known. You put up with so much slag from all of us, but you’re always there for anyone needing your help.”

Skyfire was reeling from the amount of utter adoration flowing from both tape decks. That, and the way their energy fields were still licking against his, trying to entice him and draw him closer. Involuntary shudder shook his frame as he returned the incorporeal caress experimentally and was rewarded with a flare of longing that made his very spark wrench. All that. All that for him. And they wanted to carry his sparklings…

Primus.

His engine growled again, but this time lower, softer.

“So, you want this done properly?” he glanced between the two, receiving hopeful nods from them both.

“Fine, then.” 

The flyer leaned over his captive again, one servo still holding the tape deck’s above his head while the other danced down the red plating, fingers tracing a small circle here, tweaking a wire there, dipping into a seam somewhere else. Finally his servo rested on the other mech’s thigh and he spent a moment just languidly stroking, enjoying how the tape deck spread his legs with a wanton moan, offering and inviting. 

Even the sound of three overworked sets of cooling vents couldn’t cover Blaster’s gasp when the servo finally clamped possessively over the scorching panel between his legs.

“Now – open.”

The panel opened with a snap and Blaster groaned when his spike practically sprang into the shuttle’s waiting hand. Closing his fingers around the heated metal Skyfire leaned down for a kiss. This time, Blaster was ready for the domination, and instead of resisting he gently guided the flyer’s glossa to all the spots he really liked as the other took control of their oral dance. He moaned into the larger mech’s mouth as the wonderful hand on his spike squeezed playfully. The moan turned into a long, drawn out whine as Skyfire moved lower, fingers swirling random patterns in the lubricant around his opening. 

Skyfire broke the kiss and leaned back to map the rim of the red bot’s valve by sight as well as feeling. He smirked at the amount of lubricant already running down the other’s legs and smearing on the berth as he writhed, trying to alleviate the growing need in any way.

“Looks like a tight fit.” Commented the shuttle almost offhand. “Maybe I’d better… test it first.”

Right then Blaster arched nearly off the berth as two fingers were unceremoniously jammed into his dripping valve, his ecstatic cry bouncing off the walls. Skyfire smiled wolfishly as he withdrew before pushing even further in, scissoring his fingers. Blaster’s servos scrambled to get a hold of the bigger mech, roughly scraping over plates and any exposed wires that happened to be in their path.

“Oh, oooh, yes… m-mor- AAAH!”

“Ah, I think… I found your ‘on’ switch.” Skyfire crooned as he leaned down to nip and lick along his victim’s neck.

Blaster was shaking so hard that his plating rattled as the flyer assaulted the newly-discovered sensor node again, his systems running so hot that the air around him rippled.

“Aah… Oh, Primus- GAH!”

“Wrong name.” muttered the shuttle as he released the wire he had sunk his dentas in.

“Skyfire! Please...!” the tape deck wailed as he was rewarded with the fingers in his valve thrusting in as far as they could reach, then parting and dragging along his inner walls as they were withdrawn torturously slowly.

“That’s more like it.” Skyfire purred.

Blaster nearly lifted himself off the berth as his fingers finally found purchase on the shuttle’s shoulders, digging into the seams. The pressure was slowly building between his thighs, and just when he thought he might melt with the intensity or shatter into million pieces from the tension, he felt Skyfire pull his hand away and cried out in protest.

“No! D-don’t… nngh… Don’t stop! I want- I need…”

Skyfire shushed him by stroking his thigh gently, smearing long lines of lubricant across his plating. 

“What do you want?”

“M-make me yours! Don’t- Ah! Don’t tease… Mold me around your s-spike so that no one else- Ooh, right there, right there – no one else will ever be able to satisfy me again. Skyfire, please, frag me!” Blaster barely knew what he was saying now, but Primus, he needed him right now or he'd go mad. 

“Mmm… I like the sound of that…” the shuttle rumbled, his interface panel opening with a click and his spike sliding out hard and erect. “Tell me more.”

Blaster was struck speechless for a few microns at the sight of the flyer’s equipment. 

“Oh slag, it’s even better than I imagined…” he finally gasped.

His ego swelling in time with his spike, Skyfire leaned back and smirked. “So glad you approve.” 

Mesmerized by the sight, Blaster reached out and ran both of his servos over the heated metal, grinning like a mad-mech at the shuttle’s groan and the realization that he couldn’t reach around the spike even with both servos. Somewhere to his left, Soundwave scooted closer with a sound that was half plea, half awe, but he barely could hear it.

Skyfire heard, and beckoned the blue mech closer by crooking a finger. Eagerly the telepath scampered closer, and leaned into the big mech’s servo as Skyfire stroked the side of his face with his knuckles.

“Poor thing, we’ve altogether ignored you, haven’t we?” the shuttle cooed. Then he gestured towards his straining spike. “Maybe you’d like to… sample?”

Licking his lips as if offered the greatest feast ever, Soundwave scooted closer and, tentatively, leaned down to run his glossa over the shuttle’s spike. Skyfire’s vents hissed his appreciation, and the blue tape deck took that as his cue to wrap both of his servos around the base while his lips closed over the tip. 

Blaster tried to hook his fingers into the seams of Skyfire’s hip to pull himself closer, but was stopped by a big white hand on his shoulder.

“Ah, ah, ah.” the shuttle admonished, pushing the other Autobot back. “You had your turn. Now, you get to watch.”

Optics bright with triumph, Soundwave glanced at his counterpart before returning his attention on the spike being offered to him. Cradling and stroking it with his servos like a favorite pet, he moved to mouth hungrily at the shuttle’s pelvic seams. He dipped his glossa in the gaps between the plates to tease sensors and dug his fingers under the armor to roughly pluck at wires before distracting the white mech from the sting by firm strokes over his spike. All the while his own engine responded to every sound he could wring from the flyer with tiny, thrilled purrs. 

Blaster was shocked beyond all measure to see how his rival was working their chosen mate into a near frenzied state. He sat as still as a statue, his valve throbbing and his cooling fans wailing watching mesmerized as the blue mechs glossa danced over the white-painted metal. He ached to touch himself, just to take the edge off, but Skyfire had told him to watch…

Slaggit if that mech managed to make him into a voyeur now…

Finally, after having explored the area surrounding the spike to his spark’s content, Soundwave started making his way up along the length of it. He alternated the stimulation between quick kitten licks and teasing, fluttering touches of his lips. Sometimes he let his dentas glide over the surface, relishing in the small bumps caused by the seams. When he finally latched on the head again and sucked like his function depended on it, Skyfire’s whole frame jolted violently and a harsh bark of a groan spilled from his vocalizer.

Grabbing the back of the blue mech’s helm, the shuttle gently pried the other from his spike, shuddering again as the tape deck’s lips released their hold with a wet ‘pop’ and a disappointed mewl. 

“Sorry love, but if you keep that up this show will be over before the fun even starts.”

He gently pushed Soundwave back to kneel on the floor beside the berth, purring deep and sensual as the Decepticon’s clever glossa caught his palm once more as he gave one final stroke to the other’s cheek.

“Now don’t go anywhere.” he advised with lambent heat in his narrowed optics. Then he turned back to Blaster, who’s optics immediately brightened at the attention.

Skyfire leaned forward, pushing the red tape deck backwards with his sheer presence, until the other was lying on his back on the berth with a huge, lusty shuttle hovering over him. “So… are you ready to proceed?”

“Oh, I’m ready alright…” Blaster tried for his usual, playful tone, but the effect was mostly ruined by the breathlessness of his voice.

“Oh? Why don’t you tell me about it?”

"I-I’m so hot and wet inside... Just the thought of you showing your spike into me until I can feel it at the back of my intakes makes me burn. I won’t be able to tell when you overload because I’m leaking so badly you can’t possibly make me any wetter…"

“Oh, you’ll feel it alright.” Skyfire growled, and without further ado, grabbed the red tape deck by the hips and penetrated his valve in one sharp move.

Blaster’s howl was deafening, breaking into static at the end, and Skyfire savored it like the finest high grade. But just as he was about to thrust into the red Autobot again, a small, sob-like sound from his right caught his attention.

Soundwave was still kneeling on the floor where he had been momentarily forgotten, one servo braced against the floor while the other rubbed furiously at his own valve, his head thrown back in rapture while his optics remained locked on the pair on the berth. Growling, Skyfire reached out and slapped the blue tape deck’s servo away from his interface array.

“Wait for your turn.”

Soundwave keened, desperate for release, but obediently placed his servo on the floor, fingers twitching and smearing lines of lubricant on the tiles with the effort of restraining himself as the other tape deck’s moans were rising in pitch. 

A high-pitched whine and an absolutely sinful wiggle from beneath him drew Skyfire’s attention back to the red Autobot. Blaster’s valve was dripping wet and so wonderfully tight and hot around his spike, the mech writhing beautifully under him to get more of the wonderful friction his spike could provide. 

Feeling more than a little devious, Skyfire tilted his hips, not pushing in but making his spike shift slightly inside the tape deck’s valve, rubbing ever so slightly against the sensor nodes. The reaction was instant and infinitely gratifying. Blaster arched off the berth with a choked moan, his legs wrapping around the shuttle’s waist as his hips bucked spasmodically, trying to force the spike deeper.

“Oooh, Prii-muuuussss…”

“Told you – nnh – already, wrong name.” Skyfire grunted, slowly thrusting in further. He didn’t wish to draw this out any more than Blaster did, but he had to be careful. With the size difference he could easily hurt the other, and the red mech was too far gone to really notice or care, so he had to make sure to take it slow. 

Blaster was quickly losing all his capacity for intelligent speech.

“Ah… mmmh… M-more. Skyfire… too much but not enou-ah, ah, AH!… Ooh, fill me- So hot, so deep… Skyfire, please – I can’t-!”

The shuttle was almost surprised as his pelvic plating finally pressed against Blaster’s, the lubricant smeared all over the red bot’s interface array hot and sticky between their bodies. The tape deck was so tight around his spike he had to take a moment to savor the feeling. As Blaster’s half-moaned pleas started rising to a hysteric pitch, he finally pulled back and then thrust forward again.

Blaster’s babble was cut off with a choked cry. His CPU blanked in a blissful state of narrowed sensation in which nothing existed except the feeling of the white mech over him, against him and inside him. He ground against Skyfire as the shuttle surged against him, trying to be gentle but forgetting how.

The overload was building obscenely fast. Skyfire cycled air through his intakes as fast as he could, his vents steaming as he gritted his dentals. Heat, pressure, sound… He might have been controlling their movements physically, but the tape deck’s every wiggle and moan were working him closer to a state where he would do anything for just a little more. 

Then just as it was almost too much, there was a hiss and a click, punctuated by a bitten-off gasp from Blaster, and the red bot’s chest plates folded back. His spark was pulsing rapidly, engorged and sparking erratically. With no more layers to filter it, Skyfire could feel the wave of energy against his plating almost like water, slipping in through the gaps and tickling his spark, which pulsed almost painfully in return, pressing against the inside of his chest plates.

For a split second, he was struck motionless with awe. Blaster whimpered at the lack of stimulation, but when the hesitating look on the shuttle’s face finally registered to his pleasure-choked circuits, he reached a hand up and caressed the huge mech’s face. When Skyfire managed to tear his gaze away from the treasure that had been offered to him and met his optics, he smiled with every bit of the trust, adoration, and the first glimmers of real love he felt, and whispered:

“All for you.”

That was Skyfire’s undoing, and he swooped in for a kiss. As their lips and glossas tangled, his own chest plates shifted, parts disappearing into specially crafted subspace pockets, and the light from two exposed sparks flared brightly.

At a later date, they would do this properly, explore one another’s deepest essence like only bondmates could, but now they were so wound up that even the first tentative brush lit up his circuits like a Primus-damned explosion. Skyfire crushed Blaster against himself as he roared his overload, a rumbling bass as a counterpoint to the other’s higher pitched shriek of ecstasy. 

Trebling, barely still online, the shuttle managed to cling to enough sense not to crush his partner as he collapsed. He disentangled himself and rolled over, his vents still stuttering as the aftershocks died down.

The flyer’s optics blinked back online as insistent fingers ran over his side, lingering just slightly over the sensitive seams. He huffed a laugh when he turned his head and met a pair of ember-bright red optics, their owner venting hot air and nearly vibrating with anxiety.

“Oh, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you.”

With that, he reeled the other in for a kiss, pulling him against his frame and sitting up on the berth. Soundwave reached out and palmed the white chest plate possessively as his thighs squeezed Skyfire’s hips, trying to find enough leverage to raise himself up on to the spike that was quickly re-pressurizing as it was rubbed between their abdominal plates.

Skyfire reached down and around to dip his fingers in the blue mech’s valve, and found that if Blaster had been dripping, Soundwave was leaking steadily and shivered nearly violently at the slightest touch. Experimentally, he pushed one digit into the valve, and Soundwave tore his lips away from the bigger mech with a gasping cry, arching back in a way that was nothing if not erotic.

Oh, that was a good sound. He moved his other servo to the tape deck’s upper thigh, thumb digging just slightly into the seam between the hip and the leg, and the smaller mech shuddered in his servos with a keening groan. Finding himself growing anxious, Skyfire removed his fingers from the other’s valve, earning a disappointed whine, but that morphed quickly into anticipating moan as the shuttle positioned the blue mech over his hard spike.

Skyfire lowered him down, slowly working his impressive length into the sinful heat and soft tightness of the other’s valve. Soundwave released another moan or a choked gasp every time a new sensor node was reached, and the flyer fought every inch of the way not to give in to his baser urges and just slam home in one stroke. Finally he was sheathed to the hilt, and released a girder rattling sigh himself. Soundwave was nearly incoherent, knuckles of one servo jammed into his mouth to block any more of those wanton sounds from escaping.

“Poor thing. Are you feeling so overwhelmed already?” the shuttle cooed. “Is that’s why you use the mask and the synthesizer? Just the slightest touch makes you moan, doesn’t it?” He punctuated the question with a small buck of his hips, smirking when a staticy groan bubbled forth.

Skyfire chuckled, deep and pleased. “If the other ‘cons saw your face, they’d never take you seriously as an officer anymore. All they could think of would be getting you on your knees in front of them. And if they heard you like this, they’d be standing in line to bang you.”

Soundwave appeared to pull himself together and looked up at him, pouting just a bit at the teasing, but then the pout melted into a tiniest of smirks, and a sparkle of mischief flickered in the luminous red optics. The blue mech reached up, and very slowly and deliberately, placed his servos on the sides of the bemused shuttle’s head.

Then suddenly Skyfire was falling. 

Logically, he knew it wasn’t possible, because less than a micron ago he had been sitting on his berth, but in an instant, he lost all sense of equilibrium, of up and down, as if his very world had been turned on its head and gravity no longer applied. He almost panicked, but then he realized that he could still feel the berth he was sitting on and Soundwave in his lap, but the sensation seemed… distant, somehow. Like he had been drawn back from his physical sensors, into his own processor. 

And he wasn’t alone in there. 

Soundwave was in there with him, gently touching and caressing. It wasn’t any kind of physical sensation. More the feel of his mind’s reaction to a physical sensation. It was pushing and pulling in turns, fluttering like a sparkpulse, and with a start the white mech realized that the telepath wasn’t only in his mind, he was actually drawing Skyfire into his own processor.

He couldn’t describe how he was able to perceive it, or how he was able to tell where his own mindspace ended and the other started. Every time he reached out, he simply got the feel of other, emotions and memories that weren’t his own. Then Soundwave shifted on his spike, and with a jolt he realized he could feel the other mech’s body like he felt his own. He could feel the delicious, aching fullness of his spike filling the tape deck’s valve, the heat off his own plating and his own arms around the other’s frame. 

He almost pulled back, feeling like an intruder suddenly, but right then Soundwave braced himself on his shoulders and lifted himself up before dropping down on to the flyer’s spike again. Skyfire felt the bolt of electrifying pleasure shoot up his backstrut at the same time he felt the wave throb through Soundwave, but before the ripple of pleasure could fade, he felt Soundwave catching his pleasure and pulling it in, while sending his own back to the shuttle, and then both reflected that back again…

Skyfire was left dazed until he sensed what felt an awful lot like a mental smirk from the blue mech, and his engine revved. The telepath didn’t dare think that was enough to do him in, did he?

Skyfire shifted his grip on the other, hindered by his sense of distance from his body, but aided by his double sensation of his own servos through Soundwave’s sensors. He grasped the tape deck firmly by the hips and lifted him almost clear off his spike before letting him drop down again. The pulse of physical sensation and the following backlash nearly knocked him flat on his back this time, but he cry it wrung from Soundwave was definitely the best one yet, so he repeated the action. And again. And again, until he found an easy, steady rhythm.

Burning carnal pleasure was washed back and forth between them, and with Soundwave’s eroding concentration, other things began to bleed into the steady loop of physical sensations. Dreams, hopes, memories, all things that made up the two of them. Emotions were bleeding into the connection more and more. Every flash of memory, every brush of the truest essence of the mech they had so freely given themselves to, roused a responding flare of passion and adoration.

It was too much, too close, too intimate. But it felt so horribly, irresistibly, fantastically good, Skyfire wasn't so sure he wanted to argue with it. 

Nimbly, but with great sense of urgent need, the presence in his mind slipped further, gently leafing through his CPU until it found the commands to expose his spark chamber, while carefully guiding him to the same lines of code in his own processor. He couldn’t remember either of them actually initiating the commands, only a sense of fervent agreement echoing over their entire shared consciousness, before everything went white as liquid heat spread outward from their sparkchambers.

As Skyfire came to, he was lying on his back, and Blaster was griping:

“Slaggit, almost crushed me, you big motor-head…” 

Soundwave reached over to bump the other in the shoulder, which ended more as a sloppy slap as he couldn’t muster the coordination and energy needed to even make a proper fist. Blaster gave half of a growl in response and showed the other’s limb away angrily. Despite the languid, post-coital hum of his systems, Skyfire felt his temper flare as his two mates fell into their non-verbal bickering again. 

This time though, both mechs suddenly recoiled before he could so much as rev his engine. He himself gasped as sudden stab of emotions and thoughts that were not his own flashed through his spark like a dizzying mental kaleidoscope. Things shifted and fractured into different things, emotions and pictures mixing and overlapping. 

Just as suddenly as it started, it stopped again, but even as he was left reeling and disoriented, Skyfire got the feeling of overwhelming loss. Without even realizing what he was doing, he reached out, only to run into a blockage. Soft, warm and endlessly apologetic, but firmly keeping him out from… what exactly?

“Nnh… The bond. B-block it.” Soundwave groaned. 

The sparkbond? Ah well, that made sense. But block it? Skyfire’s processor instantly recoiled from the idea, even as the pudding processor ache the first wave of shared thoughts had brought on drummed dully in the back of his head. 

Blaster snuggled closer, reaffirming his physical presence to compensate for the lack of the bond. Having shared a deep connection with their cassettes for vorns, the tape decks were on firmer ground now.

“You have to keep it blocked till it can be properly stabilized.”

Skyfire tucked his face down into the Soundwave’s neck to hide his disappointed look. A protoform-deep instinct told him to keep the connection open, to feel everything that made his mates who they were, but he could see the logic. It was all too much, too fast, too raw. With instinct he didn’t know he had, he pushed back and blocked the bond. The new connection needed to settle before being opened again. At some time when they weren’t so prone to extremes of emotion.

His mates sighed in relief, but even before the sound had completely faded, the two were again glaring at one another over the shuttle’s chest.

Though still more than a little dazed, Skyfire wasn't completely incoherent. He frowned up at the ceiling. Some things still obviously needed settling before they could call it a night. Even as his body protested even at the thought of moving, he captured one of Soundwave’s arms and used his other servo to pull Blaster against his front.

“Oh no, that will not do.”

He nudged Soundwave, until the bemused tape deck slid off the berth, and then stood up himself on shaky kneestruts, placing one servo on the blue mech’s shoulder while still holding Blaster in front of him with the other.

“If we’re going to make this work, you two will just have to learn to get along.”

With that, he walked forward, pushing the two mechs before him until Soundwave’s back was pressed against the wall and Blaster was firmly caught between the two other bodies. Then the shuttle unceremoniously hiked the two mechs up and thrust back into Blaster’s valve, which was still warm and wet from their previous session. Soundwave let out a disappointed whine which melted into a groan as the flyer reached down to finger the Decepticon’s port, bracing both his mates against the wall and his chest with his other arm.

“From now on, you will be sharing my quarters. Any sparklings you carry will be siblings through my side. You… will just have to learn to share.”

With that, he yanked Soundwave further up and showed Blaster between his legs, guiding the red tape deck’s re-pressurized spike into the blue’s valve. Both of the two gasped and squirmed against the intrusion, but the shuttle flattened them to the wall with a domineering growl from his turbines. 

Blaster and Soundwave tried to look anywhere but at each other, but even the slightest of movements made their over-sensitized plating scrape together, and the feel of their mate’s spike stretching his valve deliciously made Blaster tremble with the need to move and feel that glorious thing rubbing over the sensor nodes that no one else could possibly stimulate so well. 

Soundwave wasn’t faring much better. The contrast of the cold, unyielding wall against his back and the scalding hot body molded to his front only served to underline his utterly helpless state, legs dangling in the air, completely supported by the other mechs. To top it off, Blaster just wouldn’t stay still. The erratic, spasmodical squirms kept knocking his train of thought off track every time he was about to get his foggy processor under control. 

Feeling his mates’ resistance rabidly deteriorating, Skyfire bucked his hips, earning a strangled groan from Blaster and a gasp from Soundwave as the movement jostled the other tape deck’s spike within his already painfully oversensitive valve. The shuttle’s engine rumbled with renewed lust at the sound. Primus, it was like fucking them both at the same time!

The huge flyer grabbed Blaster roughly by the back of his helm and mashed his face into the blue tape deck’s neck cables, making his dentas scrape roughly over the sensitive wires. Soundwave made a grab for Skyfire, but couldn’t reach with the other tape deck in between them, and after a few frustrating attempts dug his fingers into Blaster’s shoulder joints instead, making the red Autobot groan into his neck.

Soundwave let out a low hiss and dug his fingers harder into the seams of the other’s armor, earning a pained jerk and a growl from his red counterpart. 

“Now, now,” Skyfire chastised. He let up the pressure of his frame pinning the other two to the wall, and then reached around to nudge Blaster’s face up until the two tape decks were looking each other in the optic. “Time to kiss and make up.”

For a long moment, the two just stared at each other, and Skyfire didn’t push them. He knew he couldn’t force this issue. 

Autobot and Decepticon. The rebellious, easy-going music lover and the ever-loyal, stoic third in command. They really were as different as two mechs could be.

And yet…

Hadn’t they always reveled in those differences? Hadn’t they always treated one another as sort of a reverse mirror, something to measure themselves against?

How many times had one or the other rushed to aid his cassettes, only to look up and lock optics with their counterpart across the battlefield, sharing a nano-click of silent understanding that was quickly squashed and denied?

And now, they had both bonded themselves to a mech, who didn’t seem to have any trouble sharing his spark evenly between the two of them.

Maybe they had been looking at this the wrong way the whole time.

Maybe the meeting of two opposite forces didn’t need to be a battle. 

Maybe… 

It could be a balance.

It was hard to say which came to that revelation first, but slowly, tentatively, one set of lips brushed another. 

It was nothing like the domineering, alpha-mech kisses of their mate. This was between equals. Neither submitted, but neither was expected to. Not quite an agreement, but… a truce. More a dance than a duel. 

They might clash, they might grate on each other’s circuits, but yet, they really were two of a kind. 

Skyfire’s growl was nearly as deep as the tremors of an earthquake. 

“Good mechs.”

Then he surged forward and the tape decks surfaced from their kiss with a cry as his thrust pushed them against the wall with enough force to leave long streaks of paint on the smooth surface.

The shuttle hunched down, catching Soundwave’s lips in a kiss over Blaster’s shoulder, while the red bot craned his neck to nip along the flyer’s jawline as far as he could reach, and for the first time, it occurred to all three mechs just how perfect this was. 

Blaster angled his hips, earning a pleasured mewl from Soundwave as this caused his spike to rub over a new set of sensor nodes, and a pleased rumble from Skyfire who was now able to penetrate deeper. Soundwave scrabbled, torn between finding and teasing all his fellow tape deck’s hot spots and trying to find enough leverage to thrust back against him and Skyfire alternated both of his servos between supporting his mates and rubbing possessively over their plating as his hips pumped in a steady, relentless rhythm. 

“Ah, ah, ah, AH..!”

Blaster was nearly overcome by the double input from his valve and spike, every move wringing small, bitten off gasps from his vocalizer. Then Skyfire pressed against his back again, forcing Soundwave’s face against his neck. The other tape deck sunk his dentas into a much abused cable, too deep in the haze of lust to differentiate between his lovers, and the charge in his circuits finally boiled over. Blaster screamed as the sweet near-pain of overload tore through his system again, his energy field flaring and causing Soundwave to throw his head back with an answering howl as the red autobot’s transfluid splattered the inside of his spasming valve, adding to the mix of fluids already dripping down his legs.

Skyfire almost felt like an outsider as he rode the waves of ecstasy that were wracking through the two tape decks. Finally the sparking, pulsing energy they gave off and the clench of Blasters valve proved too much and the world was washed white as the overload made his whole system seize for an eternity of few precious microns.

The shuttle stumbled backwards, his energy levels flashing in red and is mates now a dead weight in his arms. By pure luck managed to stagger over to the berth before his knees gave out. He flopped strutlessly on his back, and the movement caused Soundwave to slide off the top of the pile and nearly off the berth before he was caught and pulled close to white plating. Blaster managed to roll off the shuttle in a (barely) more controlled manner, mirroring Soundwave’s position on the other side of their mate’s chassis. 

There was a moment of squirming as all three attempted to arrange themselves comfortably. A half-hearted growl was heard when both tape decks tried to throw one of their legs over one of Skyfire’s and their shins ended up knocking together, but a tired rumble from the flyer was all it took for them to settle, their legs now resting over both of Skyfire’s and crossed over one another.

Suddenly, Soundwave made a sleepy, startled noise. Skyfire lifted his head, worried, but the tape deck only held his servo to his chest plate for a moment, before his face melted into a smile. He pushed himself up to peer at Blaster over the flyer’s chest, and the red bot’s optics unfocused for a moment as he apparently ran a system scan. Then his face also split in a grin. Skyfire’s processor ran in afterglow-fogged circles for a few moments, before the information clicked.

Heat cycle. One time thing. For the sole reason of finding a proper sire for sparklings.

Sudden warmth curled in his spark, and he shared a soft look with both of his mates before pulling them up to drop a kiss on each of their helms. 

As he flopped back down and hovered on the edge of consciousness, listening to his mates’ systems cycling down to recharge, Skyfire didn’t have the energy to even try and hide the unholy grin on his face. Frag yeah. Life is good.


	2. Meanwhile...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally supposed to be the epilogue, but then the muse decided she wasn't done with it yet. Now it's just a short intermission.

Optimus sat at the table, very carefully contemplating nothing except the contents of his half-full cube of high grade. Especially not how many cubes he’d already had, and how badly he would regret it in the morning. Around him other Autobots were dealing with today’s mental trauma much in the same way, with small variations, some more noisy than others.

Movement and a soft thump to his left alerted him to the arrival of another, and as he looked up his optics landed on the Decepticon Air Commander’s distinguishable profile.

“Still here?”

“Obviously, Prime.”

Optimus leaned back, half consciously copying the seeker’s posture where he was lazily draped on his seat.

“You know, I don’t seem to recall anyone inviting you in the first place.”

“I just followed the promise of high grade. Nobody seemed to mind.” Starscream punctuated his reply with a swing from his own cube. “And at any rate, I was in no hurry to return to Nemesis with a buckethead with bruised ego and an acute lack of someone to pin the blame on.”

Optimus only nodded in agreement and glanced around the room.

“I suppose with all the cassettes already in attendance, you can’t add much to the collateral damage.”

“Don’t make me try, Prime.”

“Optimus, please. I’d say if we’re getting overcharged together we can drop the titles for the time being.”

Starscream glanced sideways at the Prime, seeming surprised at the offer of informality, but didn’t comment. Then it occurred to his fogged processor that the Prime had removed his mask. Seeing those pale silver lips pursing around the edge of the cube as it was lifted up to meet them tickled him somehow, but that was probably just the novelty of it.

They sat in silence for a few moments. However, before long, one thought waded through the buzz in the seeker’s CPU.

“You know, I’d thought you’d be thrilled by this turn of events. ‘Cross-faction relations’, like you termed them, can’t get much better than THAT.”

Optimus took a large gulp from his drink and turned away, muttering something unintelligible. Starscream blinked. That behavior reminded him far too much of Skywarp when he…

“Are you… sulking?”

A sharp huff from the truck’s vents. An evil grin spread across the Air Commander’s face.

“You’re jealous.”

The Prime’s optics snapped back to the seeker before he could cover up his reaction, and Starscream threw his head back, crowing with laughter.

“You are! Oh, this is rich! Great and mighty Optimus Prime, left stung that mechs are fighting over Mr. Pacifist Skyfire rather than him!”

Optimus huffed, trying hard not to squirm with embarrassment as the seeker guffawed shamelessly at his expense, causing the other occupants of the room to shoot them curious looks.

“So? I’d thought you’d be slightly miffed yourself. I mean, weren’t you and Skyfire… close, once upon a time?”

With effort, Starscream reined in his giggles.

“Yeah, well, we helped one another to blow off some steam every now and then. We had plenty of time on our servos, what with the interplanetary exploration and everything, you see. But we were always lab partners first.”

The easy admission nudged at an unasked question in the back of the Prime’s processor. He hesitated for a moment, but then decided that he probably didn’t have much dignity left to sacrifice.

“And is he… I mean… does he really have something worth fighting over?”

A dreamy little smile spread over Starscream’s face and the truck’s servo tightened around the cube in his grip.

“Oh yeah…” the seeker breathed. “It was something else, I tell you. If I could meet face to face with the mech who designed his frame, I’d gladly shake his servo.” His smile dropped a little. “Sometimes, it was almost too much.”

Optimus blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well with us seeker builds, it’s all about a careful balance between performance and weight, so space is kind of at an economy for us. Some parts need to be… downsized.” 

Good mood apparently gone, the flyer downed most of the rest of his cube, even though he obviously didn’t need any more help to loosen his glossa.

“Don’t get me wrong, it was great, but we spent more time preparing than on the actual show. It got tedious after a while. Sometimes you just want something fast and dirty, but between the two of us that just wasn’t an option.” he finished sullenly.

Optimus chuckled. He couldn’t help it, the seeker just looked so morose about it. And he had unknowingly soothed the Prime’s battered ego. Apparently there are two sides to everything. Starscream’s scowl shifted into a smirk at the low rumble from the truck.

“Laughing at someone else’s misfortune? What do you know, Optimus, you are bastard enough to be decent company, after all.”

“Thank you. You’re not all bad yourself, when you tone down the scheming.”

Starscream finished his cube and spent a moment contemplating its empty state before turning back to the other mech.

“Shouldn’t a good host offer a refill?” he showed the cube towards the Autobot leader in a not-so-subtle hint.

Optimus arched a brow ridge. “Are you sure that’s wise? You are inside the enemy base, after all. Aren’t you worried someone might take advantage of your inebriated state?”

“Worried, no. Hopeful, yes.”

Again, The Air Commander cackled at the Prime’s gobsmacked expression. 

“Oh, don’t act so surprised.”

The seeker raked his optics over Optimus’ frame and the exposed lower half of his face. It did have some aesthetic value, at a closer look. He leaned his elbows on the table with a leer.

“I’m a scientist after all, and I’ve already experimented with Autobots. And of course, every scientist worth their alloy knows that if the first experiment doesn’t yield the desired results, one must look into what other options are available. So…”

Suddenly there was far too little space between the two of them and Optimus was surprised to notice that his core temperature was some degrees above normal.

“Care to help me with further research, Optimus?”


	3. Negotiations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the positive feedback I got on the kinkmeme, I decided to flesh out the hint of Optimus/Starscream from the would've-been-epilogue, which then turned into this monster that almost ate my soul and sanity.

Optimus stumbled blindly along the corridor leading to his quarters. Blindly, because he currently had an amorous seeker attached to his face, and he hadn’t yet managed to convince himself that releasing the lip lock in favor of making their way to his quarters faster would be worth it. Starscream for his part appeared to be putting some effort into making the Prime stumble into as many walls as possible during the trip. The pretty pest actually giggled into the kiss when Optimus stubbed his pede painfully. 

Optimus growled between his clenched dentas and retaliated by flattening the flyer against the wall. Whatever the desired effect was, Optimus couldn’t remember it anymore after that made the seeker moan and arch into him as the sensitive wings scraped across the wall, rubbing their heated interface panes together positively obscenely.

Noting absently that they had finally reached their destination, the Prime pulled his partner away from the wall and stumbled backwards until his back plates met the opposite side of the hallway and groped blindly for the controls to open the door.

When the door opened with a click and hiss, Starscream appeared to have reached the end of the infamously limited seeker patience, and in a move that appeared to be some bastardization of a battle maneuver and a complicated dance step pulled the truck away from the wall and spun around, letting the momentum carry them into the near-dark room beyond the doorway. Optimus barely had the time to jab at the ‘lock’ button in the time the seeker took to take stock of his surroundings before resolutely yanking them towards the adjoining berth room.

Apparently that cursory glance wasn’t quite enough to fully map his surroundings, because in the next moment, a datapad that had fallen off the Prime’s desk slipped under his pede. Starscream flailed, stumbled and cursed, the only thing saving him from landing in an ungraceful heap was that he was still holding on to the Autobot leader’s servo. Overcharged and already off-balance, Optimus had to quickly lean to the side and catch a hold of his work desk to brace himself, incidentally trapping the seeker between his considerable bulk and the said desk. 

Having his equilibrium thrown first one way, then the other left the equally overcharged seeker dazed and clinging to the Prime for a moment. Optimus couldn’t help a deep, rumbling chuckle that bubbled forth at the sight of the sharp and acidic Air Commander blinking owlishly up at him in a way that would be far more suited for a certain Autobot flyer. 

In his inebriated state, Starscream was momentarily distracted by Optimus’ energy field folding around him, nearly as solid as the mech himself, and the sub-vocal vibrations of the truck’s frame. He pressed greedily closer as it made the sensory nodes of his cockpit rattle pleasantly. When the actual sound finally registered and he managed to comprehend the reason behind it, the dark faceplates twisted into a scowl. (Definitely a scowl. Anyone who would have called it a pout was obviously out of their mind.)

“A little respect, Prime.” He growled, showing the larger mech backwards irritably, but there was a teasing light dancing in his optics. “I might still just turn around and leave. If I find your performance as a good host lacking, that is.”

Optimus arched an optic ridge at the sudden act of hot-and-cold, but the corner of his mouth twitched upwards at the predictability of seeker vanity. But any game was more fun when there were two playing…

“Oh? But isn’t it also the host’s right to send away a guest who’s overstayed their welcome?”

“Oh, and such a welcome it was…” Starscream purred, one of his servos seeking out the red and blue bot’s windshield and tracing the edge of it with one clawed finger. “But you wouldn’t. Not when you’ve come so far. Not without sampling what I have to give.”

As Starscream had been talking, one of his legs had crawled up to hook around the mech standing over him, reeling him in to rub their fronts together lasciviously. Optimus had leaned into the touch eagerly, but right then that damnable servo that had been mapping his windshield slipped down, twisting its way into a seam on his side, and pinched. The Prime’s whole frame shuddered, much to the seeker’s delight, and he had to struggle to get his vocals under control.

“And supposing I wasn’t - nnh… interested… in what you’re offering?”

“Oh, but you are.” Starscream purred, dropping his other servo to the Autobot’s hip and running one finger along a blue-painted edge, amused by how the metal grew hotter and hotter under his fingertip as he got nearer to the truck’s interface panel. 

“So VERY interested.”

With a flick of the wrist and a snap, the panel opened and the flyer cast an appreciative look over the Prime’s very attentive spike. 

“And even if you weren’t…” he leaned up, bringing their faces so close together he could see the red light from his own optics reflecting on the silver-grey faceplates. One of his servos closed around the hot metal between their bodies and stroked languidly while the other one found Optimus’ grille and probed between the metal slats.

“I can make myself very, very hard to ignore.”

Optimus gave into every single fantasy he’d had that night about kissing that smirk right off the seeker’s faceplates. He groped blindly at the other’s back, finding the wing joints and getting rewarded by Starscream almost lifting himself off the edge of the desk where he had been perched with a noise that could only be described as a squeal. The red and white body in his arms thrummed, their energy fields crackling like he was holding a bare high-power cable a hand’s breadth away from his chassis.

The Air Commander pulled back long enough to growl, “Mmfh..berth.” before attacking the lips hovering over his again.

Optimus lifted the Decepticon off his desk and stumbled towards the open doorway. Once inside the door he set the seeker on his pedes and walked him backwards towards the berth, again unable to find the will to relinquish those delectable lips. But just as he was about to start lowering them on the berth, Starscream suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled at the same time as one of his pedes hooked behind one of Prime’s, and suddenly Optimus found himself flat on his back with a smirking seeker straddling his torso. 

“… You could have just said you wanted to be on top, you know.”

“And miss that look on your face? I don’t think so.”

Optimus was about to retort, but then Starscream shifted, and his aft brushed against the red and blue Autobot’s erect spike, and all that managed to escape the Prime was a static-laced gasp and an eager hiss of his cooling vents.

“Mmm, eager, are we?” Hummed the flyer smugly. “Better get on with the program, then. It just wouldn’t do to leave you… wanting.”

Starscream took the truck’s servo into his own, and brought it up to his own chest plates. Then he pulled it down, along the seams and over his hip. Optimus’ optics widened as the seeker guided his servo into the junction of his thighs and actually tilted his hips, just slightly, so that the red painted metal rubbed against the deep blue palm.

Somewhere above, Starscream snickered, and undulated his hips again. Optimus stared at the servo pressed firmly against the seeker’s most intimate parts like he couldn’t quite believe it was his own. Finally he managed to shake off his stupor and flexed his fingers experimentally. Starscream purred his approval as the Prime pressed back against his gyrating hips and his vents hitched when one finger slipped into the seam between his leg and body. Encouraged, Optimus brought his other hand on the seeker’s leg and guided those silver thighs further apart, giving himself more room to work. 

Slight movement caught the Prime’s attention, and looking up, he noticed Starscream’s wings trembling, twitching in time to his fingers playing with the seeker’s interface panel. Intrigued, he slid his free servo up along the flyer’s leg and side, and ran a finger along the bottom edge of the wing. Starscream jerked with a high-pitched keen, grinding the sensitive appendage into the truck’s waiting servo. Mesmerized by the slender frame arching so beautifully over his, Optimus went for the gusto this time and stroked the wing with an open palm as far as he could reach, letting his blunt fingers scrape across the smooth surface. 

Starscream threw his head back with a staticy cry, and with a snap that sounded to the Prime eerily like a gun being cocked, the panel between his legs finally retracted, and Optimus felt slick fluid dribbling over his fingers. But just as he was about to press upwards and in, the seeker suddenly grasped his wrist.

“Enough.” 

The Autobot Leader’s engine hiccupped in alarm at the sudden stop, but when the seeker simply pitched forward and smashed their lips together like he was trying to tear pieces of the Prime’s lips off just with the force of the kiss, it revved with an all new force. Then the flyer tore his mouth away and stared scrambling down along the truck’s frame, nearly toppling off the berth as his servo slipped from where it was braced against Optimus’ chest in his haste. 

Optimus couldn’t help himself. “Eager, are we?” 

“Shut up, you.” Starscream snarled as he finally managed to get himself positioned over the Prime’s hips.

He then unceremoniously grasped Optimus’ spike, smirking a little at how the mech underneath him shivered from head to pede as he did, and lowered himself down until the tip rested at the entrance of his valve. Optimus’ servos were clenching and opening again at his sides, his head thrown back as he fought the urge to simply grasp those red-plated hips and thrust upwards into that tantalizing wet heat. 

Starscream waited until the other managed to gather enough of his senses to look at him again, and then, making sure to keep his optics locked on the smoldering blue ones, slowly seated himself on the Prime’s spike. The intensity of that crimson gaze was enough to make the Autobot tremble down to his substructure, nearly as much as the heated slickness that was engulfing him inch by inch. In his peripheral vision he could see the seeker’s wings shaking almost as violently as he felt his servos did, but neither mech would relinquish the optic contact until Starscream’s full weight finally rested on Optimus, the Prime sheathed to the hilt in the flyer’s valve.

Starscream tipped his head back with a spark-deep gasp, look of surprised elation spreading over the seeker’s face as he angled his hips and felt the luxurious stretch of his valve around the spike in him.

“Oooh, I like that… A perfect fit.” he crooned, gyrating his hips in small, languid moves.

“Only – ah! – too glad to please.” Optimus chuckled tensely, biting his lip and trying to distract himself from the exquisite sensations from his spike by stroking the smooth white legs folded on either side of him.

Starscream leaned forward, bracing his servos on the bigger mechs shoulders and humming his pleasure as the sensory nodes in his valve were stimulated in a new angle. “Mmm… I just might owe Soundwave an apology later… If he and the other deck had just kept it plated, I would have missed aaallll this.”

“I’m sure you’ll get your chance. If I’m right, come tomorrow, there will be all sorts of talks about living arrangements and inter-faction politics…”

Starscream’s smile dropped and he glared at the truck. “You know it’s bad form bringing politics or religion to berth, Prime.”

A slightly-strained chuckle. “Sorry, force of habit. You don’t spend as long leading an army as I have without it invading your thoughts day and night.”

“Better keep your processor on the matter at servo, Optimus.” Starscream cocked his head to the side mock seriously, but there was an amused light dancing behind his optics. “Just imagine all the things could go telling your dear Autobots, should you disappoint me. Or even what I might do to you in a more physical sense… unless you can give me proper incentive to want you around even in the future.”

“That’s a… pretty steep demand… what with me being plating deep in you valve at the moment.”

“Don’t go thinking you got something on me. This,” he punctuated the word with a flex of his valve around the Prime’s spike, causing the truck to hiss “is now mine. And I say when you can have it back.”

“You… ngh… drive a hard bargain, there.”

“Now, now, let’s not even go into what’s hard, here.” the seeker snickered.

Optimus’ servos stilled on Starscream’s thighs and the blue glow of his optics narrowed into a calculating look while a lazy smirk crept over his lips. Starscream had to reboot his optics because it was almost exactly the same smile that Rumble and Frenzy would wear when plotting a new prank. But while it always looked playfully mischievous on the cassettes, on the Prime’s chiseled features it was somehow… rakishly charming. And when he spoke, his voice was an exact match:

“You’re right, let’s not.”

Starscream was so baffled by the uncharacteristic expression and tone that he was taken by complete surprise as the truck suddenly sat up, crushed the jet against his chassis and flipped them over, looming over the surprised seeker.

“After all, we have so much better things we could be doing right now.”

For the second time that night, Starscream suddenly found himself scrambling to regain his mental footing. But then Optimus leaned close, and the sound of their labored cooling vents was momentarily drowned by the squeal of glass on glass as the Prime’s windshield met the seeker’s cockpit. All of Starscream’s joints locked and his head was thrown back with a strangled cry at the sweet, sweet friction, and suddenly finding himself trapped by the Autobot’s larger frame, the other’s energy field and impure thoughts licking against his plating and slipping in through the seams to tease his circuits, seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

“Didn’t think you had it in you, Optimus.” Starscream attempted to quip, though some of the effect was ruined by his breathy tone.

The Prime’s chuckle was almost subsonic in its depth. 

“You’ve been so refreshingly forward all night that it would be a shame not to reward it in kind.”

The red and white flyer gasped dramatically. “You mean you’ve been holding back on me? Shame on you!”

The Autobot leader took a moment to devour the sight of the supine Air Commander, wings spread flat on his sides, servos almost lazily resting on the bigger mech’s arms and optics bright with desire. “Shame, indeed.”

One of the Prime’s servos found the flat pane of a white-painted wing and he stroked the smooth metal in a slow circle before very deliberately leaning his weight on it. Starscream moaned and squirmed delightfully as the pressure made every sensory node in the whole wing tingle. The seeker’s valve was clenching impatiently around the truck’s spike, trying to coax its owner to move, to give and take, to do anything, just as long as it involved some kind of stimulation to the poor, inflamed sensor nodes. A low, throaty hum of pleasure rattled out of Optimus.

“But fortunately, that is something that’s easily remedied.”

That was as much of a warning as Starscream got before the Prime’s looming form descended on him and any sound he might have made in reaction was swallowed by a hot mouth. The seeker growled into the kiss, throwing his arms around the other’s neck and trying to find a better angle to give as good as he was getting in the duel of their tangled glossas. 

But it turned out that the kiss had been just a distraction, because in the next moment the seeker was caught off guard as the truck shifted his weight and his hips snapped forward. Starscream broke the kiss with a rough cry, his head thrown back. Optimus wasted no time exploiting the opening and his mouth descended onto the Decepticon’s taut neck cables next. The seeker’s pedes scrabbled the surface of the berth, trying to find enough leverage to move into the Prime’s relentless thrusts, until he simply hooked one leg around the mech over him. Optimus moved one servo to a fiery red hip and slipped his fingers into the seam between the leg and the body. 

Starscream dug his taloned fingers into the seams over Optimus’ shoulders with a sound that was more snarl than a moan, and the Prime’s engines roared with ferocity that was usually reserved to the battlefield. Already the sensations were buzzing across his neural network, bleeding together and building up into a solid mass of pleasure in his core, and from the way Starscream was trembling beneath him the jet wasn’t far behind.

His servos traveled restlessly over the other’s form, trying to find what would make the flyer tip over the edge, when suddenly he became aware of nimble talons prying themselves into the middle seam of his chest plates. Shocked and alarmed, he tried to pull back, but couldn’t move far with their legs still so hopelessly tangled. Starscream simply smiled up at the shocked truck, still knuckle-deep between the plates over the Prime’s spark.

“Relax.” was all he said, optics hot with passion, and then his cockpit glass retracted and the red plates surrounding it parted just a fraction, golden light shining between them like the rising sun through a crack in the window shutters. 

In the split second that Optimus was motionless, shocked and mesmerized by the wink of the seeker’s spark, Starscream’s other servo slipped behind his neck and pulled, yanking the Autobot leader down to bring their parted chest plates flush together.

It wasn’t much, really. The gaps in their armors were too small to let through anything but the peripheral tendrils of their sparks. But with that flicker, a brush of the flares of two miniature suns, the sensation sharpened beyond insensibility. The metal walls rang with double cries of completion as the overload struck.

Optimus slumped, strutless, over the seeker. When the other made an incoherent noise of discomfort and shoved weakly at his shoulder, he gathered through monumental effort enough strength and coordination to lift himself up, pull the flyer into his arms and then flop down on his back so that the more delicately built mech was sprawled over his front. Starscream folded his servos underneath his chin and regarded the Prime through half-shuttered optics, looking every bit like some predatory animal surveying its territory with the smugness of entitlement.

“So… what kind of readings did you get?”

Optimus drew blanks for a few clicks before recalling their earlier banter in the rec room. He managed to huff a laugh at the seeker’s phrasing. “Of course, you’re only doing this for science.”

“Naturally. One should always follow their true passions.”

A comfortable silence fell over them as they both drifted down from their high, but after a moment, Starscream’s smirk faded and he looked the Prime over appraisingly. Then he surprised the truck thoroughly by pushing himself up on his hand and knees and moving to crouch over the other’s prone form.

“Have I given you enough incentive to listen to me, now?”

Optimus’ languid, post-coital thought processes halted right in their tracks.

“…What?”

Starscream looked annoyed. “I have some things I wished to discuss with you, and I figured that having you in good mood and in a private setting would make you more agreeable to listen to my proposal. And this way, you will have no reason to doubt my word.” He tapped one clawed finger on the Prime’s chest plates, right over his spark, and Optimus was shocked to feel almost as if in answer, a twinge from deep within.

The truck reached into the part of his conscious that was his spark, and was surprised when he felt the flicker of something foreign. Not a thought or an emotion, exactly, more an echo that seemed vaguely… amused?

Of course, scolded a voice that sounded suspiciously like Ratchet in the back of his mind. Partial spark merge. There was no way of doing it without leaving at least a short-term imprint of oneself on the other participant.

He looked back up at the seeker, who apparently read the dawning understanding in his optics and smirked wider.

“ Knowing how disgustingly pure-sparked you tend to be, it probably wasn’t necessary, but I’d rather play it safe. ”

“That’s… what this was all about?” Optimus was too stunned to properly communicate the sudden sense of betrayal he was feeling. 

Starscream shrugged nonchalantly. “That’s how it works with him.”

“Him?” the Prime was washed with a suspicion even as he asked. “Megatron?”

Starscream shrugged again, but his optics flicked to the side, his confident facade cracking around the edges. “It’s how it works. If I want something from him, I let him do things to me.”

“But…demanding your spark? Why would he even…?” the usually eloquent truck appeared to have lost his ability to form complete sentences.

For a brief moment, the seeker’s optics dimmed as his processor turned inward, and his faceplate twisted into a sneer of loathing. With a deep intake, he managed to chase the sudden tension from his frame, but when he spoke again, he didn’t look the Prime in the optic:

“Because… he knows how much I loathe it. To show that kind of a vulnerability to him.” 

The clawed servos on Optimus’ chest plate balled into fists, but the edge had disappeared from the flyer’s voice as he continued, leaving only a weary, sullen resentment:

“So when I…offer…he knows how desperate I must be, and he likes nothing better than watching me squirm at his pedes. And as an extra treat, he gets to feel my disgust and frustration at being unable to do anything about it first hand, so it won’t matter how well I can hide it from others, he will know how much it makes me hate myself.”

The seeker was trembling now, and the final sentence somehow sounded akin to purging one’s tanks of tainted fuel: 

“For all that amusement, he sometimes is magnanimous enough to grant my requests.”

Optimus felt his tanks roiling. Starscream, always so outwardly proud and fiercely independent… And Megatron was forcing him to debase himself to the level of a common pleasurebot. What’s more, he was enjoying the emotional torment of the seeker even more…

Apparently the exchange of emotions worked both ways, because as soon as the thought occurred to him, Starscream’s head snapped up, and the fire he was quickly growing familiar with flared in the red optics. The seeker moved to leap off the berth in a fit of rage, but Optimus hadn’t held his own hand-to-hand against Megatron by luck alone, and moving faster than seemed possible for someone his size, he flipped them over and with a few quick movements had Starscream’s limbs pinned so that the flyer couldn’t either squirm away or throw a punch.

Realizing he wasn’t going anywhere the seeker turned his head away sharply. “Don’t you dare pity me.”

“Of course I pity you! But Primus…” Optimus brought his servo to gently touch the stormy grey visage in front of him. “Why did you merge with me? Do you really think I would…?” 

Humiliate you as a payment for my assistance? Invade the deepest parts of you just to see if you’re being truthful? So many options and he didn’t want to voice any of them.

Starscream still didn’t look the Prime in the optic, but his gaze landed on the deep blue servo next to his head, and he traced the seams of the metal lightly, absently. “…No.”

“Then why? And what do I have that you could want so badly?”

“My freedom.”

That stopped Optimus cold. The seeker finally turned and locked optics with the stunned Prime, and a sense of fierce determination tickled at his spark from their partial connection.

“We seekers have our own honor code… one that ties closely with our hierarchy. And it’s something you don’t take lightly.” the seeker began. “Once you give your loyalty to a leader, you stay with them until either they release you – or you prove yourself superior to them.” 

He huffed with disgust, his gaze sliding down to the Prime’s chest. “Megatron would never release me from my oath, no matter how much he loathes the sight of me. Not while I’m the Air Commander, and as such, the leader of all remaining seekers. And you know well how successful I’ve been at trying to destroy him.”

Optimus was growing more confused by the micron. “What does that have to do with me?”

The truck nearly shivered as the red optics focused on him again, suddenly wide and pleading. 

“If you claimed my spark, then he couldn’t demand me to come back.”

The Prime reared back in shock, but the seeker followed, throwing his arms around the grounder’s neck and speaking quickly: “It’s the one loophole in the law! No one, not even one’s superior can force someone to turn against their mate. If I was bonded to you, then I would be released from him by default, because he’s your enemy! And I wouldn’t be the only one. The rest of the seekers, they were only his subordinates through me. If I leave the Decepticons, they will follow ME, not him.”

Optimus stared at the smaller mech that was clinging to him now as they both were kneeling on the berth, his own arms coming up around the flyer’s frame on instinct. “Is… the custom really so important? If it’s all about honor, then how would you lose yours by breaking a promise to someone who obviously has none?”

Starscream nearly gnashed his dentas in frustration, and smacked his servo against the other’s chest plate. “It’s our way, it’s all we have left of Vos! Can we even call ourselves seekers if we lose that too? Don’t you see it, Optimus?” his tone turned pleading again. “You’d practically have this war won if you got the seekers on your side rather than his.”

He had to admit that the seeker’s reasoning was sound, if a touch hysterical. And the thought of that beautiful form pliant and open beneath him, the hot bright spark freely offered was definitely pleasant… For a moment he was furiously tempted to take on the Air Commander’s offer, but he quickly slugged that thought in the faceplate and left it lying in a pool of its own fluids.

“Ways change, Starscream.”

The seeker couldn’t even begin to form a retort when he was showed backwards, and then found himself trapped once again against the berth, with the Prime hovering over him.

“We were driven into this war, because we Autobots were stuck to our ways and customs, and refused to change, even when we could clearly see the shortcomings of the system. If there’s one thing we should have learned by now, is that we must be able to adapt to new times and situations.”

Starscream shook his head, unable to believe he was even having this argument. “And if we cannot?”

“You must.” the words were spoken with a conviction, finality. “Megatron is not only reaping the benefits of your honor code, but also actively abusing it for maximum gain. Why should someone like that be considered worthy of getting part in your traditions?”

The red flyer wavered, uncertain suddenly. In truth, the Prime was saying nothing he hadn’t thought himself at one point, but having someone else echo the words back at him gave them a whole new weight. 

“I can’t just… make the decision on a whim.” He hated how much that sounded like an excuse even to his own audios, when it should have been a solid fact.

The color of Optimus’ optics deepened, and he leaned close.

“Could you be persuaded into it?”

The seeker looked up at the Prime, his face lax, open and oh so lost. Then, slowly, tentatively, a clawed, cerulean servo reached up, fingertips just touching the finely sculpted face above his. 

“Persuade me.”

The truck’s lips arched into a relieved smile, as if he had been silently dreading the Air Commander’s reply. The expression was so pure and innocent, that Starscream couldn’t help his intakes catching just for a moment. Then Optimus lowered himself down on the seeker, and Starscream leaned forward in anticipation for the kiss. But instead of sealing their mouths together hungrily like before, Optimus stopped only a breath away from the offered lips, and angled his head slightly, letting his own lips brush over the darker pair softly. The tantalizing touch sent tingles through the seeker’s derma plating, the maddening lack of pressure sensitizing his sensors nearly to the point of pain. When the Prime finally relented and closed the gap, the heat of it was all-consuming. 

Starscream’s arms slid up on their own accord to pull the other impossibly closer. Optimus’ servos found handholds at the seeker’s shoulders, before one started a journey up along the arm, stroking a path all the way to the wrist and carefully pulling it away from his neck. Still maintaining the lip lock, he brought their intertwined servos up over the seeker’s helm, gently pressing the lighter blue servo onto the berth palm up, before lightly running his fingers over it. Over the palm, stroking along the deceptively delicate looking fingers, then down again, dipping just slightly into the seam of the wrist. Starscream moaned into the kiss and the clawed fingers curled halfway into a fist at the tender, tickling caress.

Then suddenly those wonderful lips were gone, and he was about to let loose a small, bereft sound, when an insistent pressure closed around the upper part of the arm not currently occupied by the teasing fingers. Starscream tensed immediately, but Optimus shushed him with a deep, rumbling note of the proto-language known to all Cybertronians. A sound that communicated both safety and desire without words. Hesitantly, the flyer relaxed again, and was rewarded with a soft peck to the lips before the Prime moved lower, leaving a line of nipping kisses along his jaw. 

Optimus took his time exploring the Decepticon’s neck. He pressed his blunt nasal ridge against the trembling derma plates, venting heated air on them through his mouth, and let his glossa trail over the seams and edges. Starscream arched his neck with a tremulous gasp, cables taut and offered for more, but the Autobot continued downwards again. 

He attacked the flyer’s chassis next. Worshiping with lips and rewarding any small noises from the other with quick swipes of glossa. His hand slid up along the arm he was holding down by the seeker’s side, but when Starscream made an effort to reach for him, he quickly pressed the arm down again, added a bit more pressure for a micron, then released it once more. The message was clear. Don’t move.

The smaller mech looked slightly apprehensive, but stayed where he was as the other continued his ministrations. Optimus let his optics travel over the other’s prone form for a bit until they landed on the seeker’s chest vents. He leaned close and rumbled in amusement at the hot air blasting on his face. He traced the edges of one with his fingers, teasingly slipping just over the rim, then quickly bent down to give the opposite side a quick, sharp nip. Starscream yelped at the sudden sting and lifted his head enough to shoot a glare at the bigger mech, but his optics widened when he saw the servo that had been teasing the vent move towards his cockpit.

Optimus palmed the glass with the slow reverence, savoring the texture of the smooth glass and the supportive metal frame, the illusion of fragility given by such delicate structures. He added a bit of pressure and was rewarded by a shaky intake from the seeker. Suddenly overcome by a wicked idea, the Prime continued his open-palmed petting for a moment, keeping the pressure steady, and then quickly removed the servo. Starscream opened his mouth to verbally protest at the loss, but was cut off when the truck bent down and replaced the servo with his glossa. 

The seeker nearly arched off the berth with a half-snarl. But the sound broke into a thrilled, awestruck purring whine towards the end. Prime answered with a deeply pleased rumble of his own, pressing his face into the juncture of the flyer’s neck and letting the sound vibrate directly from chassis to chassis in a way that made Starscream claw at the berth and some of his lesser processes trip.

Somewhere in the haze, Starscream’s attention was suddenly drawn into the weight of the other mech on top of him and a sudden pang of apprehension flashed through his spark when he realized that he was essentially trapped, at the truck’s mercy. Learned instinct was telling him to fight for control, but something else, new and fragile and yet unnamed, but infinitely soft, precious and insistent, made him hesitate.

Then those pale silver lips were on him again. Those damnable, exquisite, addictive lips trailed a path up his neck cables, over his chin, and stopped just above his long enough for their owner to distract him with his nauseatingly earnest blue optics, before swooping in for the kill, and Starscream made a noise that was equal parts delighted and doomed into the kiss.

When the Prime moved away again, the seeker found himself feeling entirely un-Decepiconishly warm, relaxed and trusting, and not caring one bit. He lifted his other arm up to join its twin over his helm, arching his back and tipping his head to the side coyly. He nearly giggled in glee at the way the truck froze and stared at him for a moment, his fans picking up speed at the display. 

Well, it was nice to know he hadn’t lost all of it.

Tearing himself away from the visual allure, Optimus continued his exploration of the other’s frame. He drew his fingertips across Starscream’s white-painted middle. If he ever felt like being entirely honest to himself, he might have admitted that he’d always had a fascination for this part of the seeker, second only to those magnificent wings. Halfway between the powerful thrusters and the wings, yet seeming too delicate to offer enough support for either. He laid both of his palms flat against the white metal, warm and shivering almost imperceptively under his touch, then slid them up until his fingers found the seam where the seeker’s red chest met his abdomen, and followed the edge around to the back. 

Starscream’s backstrut bowed like he was about to break in half, and a thin, reedy sound of need escaped his vocalizer as the Prime’s servos slipped down to the edge of his pelvic plating and then reversed their course back to the front.

A strangled whimper fell from the gunmetal grey lips as the Autobot continued his downward path, fingers splaying over the red plated hips and giving a few playful tugs to the wires that were peeking from the seams there, before the blue servos closed around the seeker’s smooth white legs and pulled them apart gently, but with indomitable pressure. Optimus raked his optics over Starscream’s exposed interface array, and a mixture of guilt and even guiltier primal pride battled within him at the sight of the long lines of blue paint on the inside of the flyer’s thighs. Lines that were mostly covered with a thin, glistening film of lubricant. 

Starscream was very nearly lying in a puddle of fluids, only mostly his own. Optimus had to quickly shutter his optics and fight for control over his body when he caught the sight of the thick, viscous liquid oozing from the seeker’s valve, and was hit by an overwhelming urge to ram his spike right back in and add to the mess. He hurriedly turned his attention back to the lubricant covering the slender thighs, staining the white metal a soft purple. That proved a suitable distraction, for he was almost immediately hit by a different sort of urge.

Starscream all but shrieked at the first contact of glossa to his inner thigh. He tried to scrabble into a sitting position, but the Autobot would have none of it. He yanked one of the seeker’s legs over his shoulder, sending the flyer flat on his back again, and pressed a servo to his cockpit to keep him still. Starscream writhed helplessly and groaned all the way from the bottom of his engines as the Prime returned to his task of laving the seeker’s legs with long, hot strokes of his glossa, cleaning off the smeared lubricant. Optimus worked his way up, pausing every now and then to nip on the seams that ran along those impossibly elegant legs, the perfect flaw on the otherwise pristine surface. 

When the red and blue bot finally reached his open panel, Starscream wasn’t able to make any sort of recognizable sound anymore, his vocalizer breaking into static. Bites and licks rained on his interface array as Optimus experimented with the sounds and twitches he could produce. Worrying at his partner’s defenses, refining his approach until he drew out the essence of what would bring the seeker over.

Starscream’s claws gouged into the berth as the Prime’s glossa snaked into the gap between the leg and the hip, chasing after the trickle of lubricant that had seeped through. Dentas abusing the sensor nodes around the edges of his valve took him to the precipice between pleasure and pain, and the gentle strokes of lips and glossa that followed, soothing the sting nearly made him sob. When the glossa finally invaded his valve, squirming and stroking, the sensation spiked and he lifted his hips helplessly, but right at that moment, the mouth ravaging the junction of his thighs pulled away.

Starscream hovered on the edge, his wings twitching restlessly, begging wordlessly for just a little bit more, that tiny drop that would make the liquid pleasure gathered into his system spill over. After a long moment of wavering agony, he came down without plunging into the ecstasy, and sagged down on the berth. But in only a moment the void left by the seeker’s ragged intakes and moans was filled by a litany of the foulest swears and insults known to Cybertronian language from the very same source.

The diatribe was cut off as Optimus lunged upwards and mashed their lips together with all the ferocity of a predator snatching its prey. The prime’s servos were traveling all over the seeker’s form again, not dipping into the seams anymore, but with insistent pressure and fervor. Starscream felt himself reeling, lightheaded with the certainty that even just that would be enough to bring him to climax very shortly. 

He spread his legs in blatant invitation and Optimus growled his appreciation, a bass thrum that wrapped around the seeker and electrified his every circuit like flying through a storm cloud. Starscream’s wings flared and he could swear that the very sound was caressing him, stroking down his spinal strut, urging him on in his passion.

Optimus pulled back from the kiss, pushing himself up to look down on the seeker, who immediately let out a small, bereft cry at the loss of sensation. He watched as the other squirmed underneath him, the charge in his system having long ago grown past the point of discomfort, his intakes catching in small hiccups, ruby optics burning and begging. 

He decided right then and there that if Megatron would have to answer for only one crime in his existence, it would be for making this entirely sensual creature treat interfacing as a chore to get over with.

Starscream wondered distantly why the Prime was regarding him so intently. There was a kind of fierce tenderness in his face that, upon seeing, drove the seeker slightly mad. In a strange way that both frightened and exhilarated him, to be so strongly and intimately wanted by another. Then Optimus grasped his hips, and Starscream could’ve said a prayer of thanks to Primus if he’d had the coherency as the Autobot finally lined up his spike with the seeker’s valve and pushed in slowly and deliberately.

When the grounder finally was sheathed to the hilt, Starscream could only cling to him and shiver, not knowing if he wanted this torture to reach its climax or continue forever. Optimus was also shivering violently, his vents sputtering and his hips moving in tiny, involuntary twitches, fighting back the urge to thrust and grind.

Somewhere in the back of the seeker’s processor, the heat and the intensity of feeling and emotion triggered a purely instinctive reaction, and with a click, is chest plates parted again. The sound and sudden flare of light were enough to flush the truck out of his stupor enough to realize what was happening.

“No.” the light was partially smothered as the Prime quickly placed a hand on the other’s cockpit, preventing it from splitting further. “Not that.”

Hurt and uncertainty flitted over the seeker’s faceplates, before Optimus continued: “Not yet. Not until neither of us can think of no other reason than that we want to.”

After a few false starts, Starscream found his voice: 

“Will there be other times?”

“You can decide that there will be.”

Suddenly recognizing the shape of the trap he had stepped in, Starscream opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound Optimus angled his hips and ground their interface arrays together in a circular motion that made the seeker’s optics short out and a keening wail rise from his throat. The Prime gave him no respite, his servos wreaking havoc on the flyer’s sensory network and the vibrations of the truck’s powerful engine shaking him to the substructure. Then the Autobot went abruptly still again, and when the seeker whined his displeasure, he rumbled:

“Say yes.”

There was a strange, dominant undercurrent of claiming in his voice that spoke to a deeper part of the seeker’s coding, and when Optimus bit his neck cables and growled, his final self-control circuits burned out with an audible pop.

“Aah! Optimus! Yes, YES!”

The grounder’s lips crashed on his with bruising force, and the next few moments were a haze of touch, movement and heat, until it all exploded in a wash of white across his sensory net.

When he became aware of his own body again, Starscream found himself trapped underneath Optimus’ bulk. After a moment of prodding, the Prime stirred enough to roll over, and Starscream squeezed the last bit of his energy into snuggling close to the truck’s side.

Despite his protoform-deep exhaustion, Optimus managed to boot his vocalizer once more:

“I got you to say yes.”

“Mmrgh… not fair…” the seeker muttered, already half unconscious.

Optimus was about to follow suit, when he felt a slight shift in his spark. 

Partial-merge residue. Fading already, and usually easily purged from the spark, but somehow, he couldn’t find it in himself to do it. Instead, he let his own energies curl around that tiny speck, which was finally still and content. A drop in the ocean, perhaps, but it was there.

As Optimus settled more comfortably it occurred to him how well now recharging Starscream fit against his frame. Not to mention how soothing the low sounds and minuscule vibrations of the other’s systems were. Maybe… if things worked out right, in the future…

No, too early for that.


	4. The morning after

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go. The end. For real, this time.

“Is this from last night or the fight before that?” Ratchet poked at one scratch on Blaster’s chest plates.

The red bot shrugged with a grin. “Beats me.” 

The medic blinked before sighing. “Serves me right for asking, I suppose.”

Ratchet glanced towards the other berth, where Soundwave was seated as close to Skyfire’s side as he could without looking like he was searching comfort and security from his mate. 

“Will you just relax? I can practically hear your circuits sizzling.” the CMO groused at the blue mech. “I’m not gonna attack you. Especially under the circumstance.”

“Apologies. Prior experiences: negative. Imperative for cauti-“

“Soundwave.” Skyfire interrupted softly, tilting his helm slightly to look at the shorter mech.

The blue tape deck glanced up at the shuttle, and appeared to hesitate for a moment before his face mask split and folded away and he turned back to the medic. “Sorry. A force of habit.”

Ratchet arched a surprised browridge, but Skyfire beamed at his mate and stroked a servo over his back. Even Blaster grinned at his fellow tape deck from where he was propped into a half-sitting position on the examination berth, and Soundwave’s lip components turned upwards as well, almost shyly. 

The ambulance’s expression softened. “You really are gonna make this work, aren’t you?”

“Oh, you know me, Ratchet. Boom or bust.” Blaster grinned.

The medic snorted and eyed the red tape deck’s chassis, which was generously scratched all over and even sporting a few rather incriminating dents in places that left little to imagination. Not to mention a few errant streaks of white and blue paint that had been missed during the quick clean up before the three newly bonded had shown up at the med bay.

“Seems to me you got plenty of both last night.” the mostly white bot stated dryly.

He then pulled out a scanner and held it over Blaster’s chest plates. He pushed a couple of buttons, frowned at the display on the device, then moved the scanner to the red mech’s abdomen and did the same. The shuttle and his mates waited patiently. After all, the CMO had already performed the same examination on Soundwave, and they had a very good hunch about the results. Finally, Ratchet shut off the scanner and set it aside before addressing Skyfire.

“Suppose I owe you congratulations, you got them both.” Then he stepped to his work terminal and spoke to the whole triad. “Both newsparks are giving off a faint but steady signal, so the chances of them being spontaneously reabsorbed are pretty low, but I will still want both of you here for a check up tomorrow morning, and from then on every orn. And if either of you is feeling any kind of pain, anywhere near your spark, come to me immediately. We’ve been at war and you’ve both been injured far too many times for me to be willing to take any chances. Is that clear?”

After getting a round of ‘yessir’s from the creators-to-be, Ratchet turned to transfer his notes from his personal datapad to the tape decks’ medical files, and pretended not to notice how Blaster quickly slid off the medical berth and joined the other two, Skyfire bending down to share a kiss with both tape decks, which soon turned into a three-way nuzzle.

“While you’re here,” Ratchet continued and smirked a little as Soundwave jumped at the sound of his voice, only to be unrepentantly yanked back into the impromptu cuddle-pile by Skyfire. “I might as well authorize the two of you to keep tabs on that big lugnut of yours. Which means that if Skyfire ever fails to emerge from his lab to refuel and recharge properly, you have my permission as the CMO to interfere. By any means necessary.”

The cassette players snickered at their mate’s mildly offended look. “Why don’t you assign sparkling-sitters for Wheeljack of Perceptor? Primus knows they need it more.”

“You’re too heavy for me to drag your aft to your berth when you collapse in the lab.”

Blaster all but keeled over from laughing, but Soundwave’s lip components slanted into a slight, calculating smirk. 

“The idea is not without merit.”

The red bot’s chortling cut off as he caught his fellow tape deck’s tone, and he stared at the blue mech for a few moments, before a matching grin crept on his face.

“Yeah, after all…He did say ‘by any means necessary’.”

Skyfire felt a warm shiver run up his backstrut when his mates turned those devious looks at him with obvious intent, even though he was still painfully aware of the low energy warning flashing in the corner of his HUD.

“Okay, that’s enough. Get out! All of you! Go and refuel, you’re all but running on fumes!” the CMO marched over, grabbed each of the tape decks by the shoulder and showed them towards the door. “I don’t want to see a single bolt of any of you in my med-bay until tomorrow!”

The shuttle twitched slightly at the rough treatment his mates were receiving, but when Ratchet turned his best ‘I am the CMO, no arguments’-glare at him, he opted to just quickly herd his mates out the door. As they navigated towards the rec room, he noticed Soundwave’s pensive look.

“You alright there, ‘Wave?” he asked, wrapping a comforting arm around the blue mech’s shoulders for good measure.

“Based on this first contact with your medic, I’m not sure if I miss Hook or not. I am mildly disturbed.”

“Aw, Ratch’ isn’t all bad.” Blaster turned around to walk backwards in front of the other two. “He just interprets TLC as ‘threatening lessens casualties’. He really just – Oof!”

Having disregarded the need to look where he was going, Blaster had walked straight into something very solid. Stumbling around, he found himself face to face with a very surprised Optimus Prime. But what made the red tape deck reboot his optics wasn’t the sudden appearance of his leader, but the tri-colored seeker that currently had what appeared to be a firm and possessive hold of the truck’s arm.

The two groups stared at each other in stunned silence for a moment, until Starscream turned to Skyfire and asked with a smirk:

“So… how was your night?”

The white mech was surprised for a moment at being addressed so casually by his once-partner, but something about the seeker’s grin reminded him of easier times between the two of them. Times when banter like this was a constant. 

In a sudden surge of bravado, the shuttle grabbed Blaster with his free servo and pulled both tape decks close to his side with a grin. “Better than yours.”

“Now, now, don’t be so sure…” Starscream purred and leaned on the arm he was still holding captive, running a blue finger along one of the seams while Optimus looked like he was doing everything in his power not to squirm in mortification.

“You and the Prime? Surprising.” Soundwave managed to get very close to his usual, emotionless tone, but the effect was mostly ruined by the tiniest twist of his lips and the way he was absently stroking Skyfire’s servo with one of his own.

“Well, who says you were the only ones allowed to have a good time? Besides, stranger things have happened when the highgrade is flowing and the company is… agreeable.” This time, Starscream leaned over to nuzzle a seam near the truck’s shoulder, which brought forth a hitch in the Prime’s vents.

“Sarscream, I really don’t think they need a play-by-play about last night’s events.” Optimus huffed, exasperated, and deftly captured the devious little servo that was sneaking towards his grille in one of his own.

“You had a party to celebrate our bonding? Awww, you shouldn’t have.” Blaster grinned.

“More like we tried to drown the processor crashes.” a new voice broke in cheerfully. 

Jazz came marching up the hallway from the direction of the rec room, an energon cube in his servo and his trademark grin firmly in place.

“Morning y’all. If you’re planning on refueling, then I’m glad to report that there’s been no damage to the rec room, save for a few spilled drinks, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“Small mercies.” muttered Optimus, but there was a smile in his optics.

Skyfire looked the black and white mech over suspiciously. “You seem awfully cheery and sober for this hour.”

Jazz grinned even wider. “Hey, I can party without being overcharged off my aft.”

“Say, Jazz? Since you probably remember more about last night than anyone else, do you have any idea about where the cassettes are?” Blaster piped up.

“Indeed. There is a high risk of mischief, should they be left unattended.” Soundwave was immediately on the same page.

Jazz arched a brow behind his visor at the turnabout in the tape decks’ attitudes from yesterday, but refrained from commenting. If it ain’t broke…

“No worries, I got it covered. They drank about their own weight in highgrade each last night, so I dragged them all to the Dinobots’ room and left them to sleep it off.”

Starscream turned look at the saboteur with honest admiration. “You are a cruel and vindictive mech with a twisted sense of humor. I salute you.”

“Thank you. I figured you’d appreciate it. Now if you’ll excuse me, someone has to man the monitors or poor ol’ Red’s gonna have the glitch of glitches once he comes around. Inferno sure was practically pouring that highgrade down his intake, so that might be a while.”

Blaster watched Jazz saunter down the hallway. “What are the odds of Prowl waking up chained to the berth?”

“I’d rather not think about it.” Optimus said evenly as he turned to lead the way to the rec room.

When they arrived, the room was unsurprisingly empty, and, as advertized, mostly intact. Optimus went to the energon dispenser to draw everyone a cube, while the others went to arrange the scattered chairs and tables into some kind of a coherent seating arrangement. When he returned, he saw that Skyfire had hauled one of the couches over to one of the tables, and had then plopped down in the middle of it with his mates curled up on both sides of him. Starscream arched a brow with a slight smirk at the arrangement, but the shuttle just smiled as he accepted his cube from the Prime.

As Optimus and Starscream pulled up chairs and sat down, Blaster cast a look around the room. 

“Sure is strange seeing this place so… empty.”

“Given the events of yesterday, I’m surprised if we see anyone till mid-dutycycle.” Optimus replied, sipping his drink. 

Except right then there came the sound of stumbling footsteps from outside.

“See, now you jinxed it.” Starscream muttered.

But when the door opened, all the mechs within the room had to reboot their optics. The first to stagger in were Skywarp and Sideswipe, all but leaning on one another, and grinning like it was going out of fashion. Following close behind them was Sunstreaker, meticulously polished as always, strutting in with all the airs of a particularly pleased peacock. Bringing up the rear was Thundercracker, in his usual quiet manner, but also wearing the unmistakable satisfied smirk of the well fragged.

“Heeyy, Scree!” Skywarp crowed upon catching a sight of his wingleader. “Some party, huh?”

“Dear Primus, just how overcharged did you two get last night?” Starscream asked, looking from one of his fellow seekers to the other.

“If anything, we were only following your lead.” Thundercracker huffed from where he was gathering an armful of cubes from the dispenser. “I’m surprised no-one else seemed to notice you practically dragging your catch out of the room early in the evening.”

“And a Prime catch it was.” Sideswipe butted in with a leer that made Optimus try to shrink into himself. 

“At least some of us have standards.” The tri-colored seeker growled at his trinemates with a meaningful glance towards the frontliners, who were currently dragging another couch over to the group.

“Awww, don’t knock it, Scree.” Skywarp grinned altogether unrepentantly. “Jet judo, mech. I mean seriously, who knew it was just for practice?”

Starscream’s scowl took a turn to something mildly intrigued. “You’re saying they can actually do something with wings besides mangle them?”

“Oooh, yeah.” Skywarp hummed happily as he slumped down on the other end of the couch the twins had brought over. 

“Slag, why didn’t I ever try twins before? Just one is nice already, but when they work in tandem…” The purple and black seeker trailed off with a shudder that made his wings flutter. 

Starscream stared at his trine for a moment, contemplating, then glanced at the twins who had now taken up residence on the couch (Skywarp had casually thrown one of his legs on to Sunstreaker’s lap) and finally waved a hand dismissively.

“Oh, have it your way.”

Blaster leaned around Skyfire’s bulk to give them an odd look. “Are all Decepticons this blasé about sleeping with the enemy?”

Starscream shrugged. “Seekers already have a reputation of being shareware. Why waste it?”

Thundercracker had pulled up another chair and now sat sipping his own cube. At Blaster’s question he shared a look with Skywarp, and then turned to Starscream, a serious look settling on his faceplates.

“On the topic of enemies… Well, it’s been a nice change, being here without anyone trying to shoot us or throw us in the brig,” he tipped his helm slightly towards Optimus to signal his appreciation, “but shouldn’t we be heading back soon? I mean… You being the Air Commander and all, Megatron can’t be awfully pleased about this. Not that he ever is about anything.”

From the corner of his optics Starscream saw the Prime stiffening, hope and dread visibly warring in his optics, though he didn’t make a sound. 

He wouldn’t try to stop me if I decided to leave, the Air Commander realized, almost fondly amused. Such a noble fool. 

He took a deep intake and smiled. “I’m in no hurry anywhere.”

The two darker colored seekers boggled at their trinemate as if he had just announced that he was getting himself reformatted into a grounder frame, then turned as one to stare at Optimus, then back again. Predictably, Skywarp was the one to break the silence:

“Slag, he must be good.” 

Starscream managed to shrug nonchalantly, though a part of him wanted to chortle at the way the Prime had nearly choked on his energon.“He is, but that’s beside the point.”

The three seekers regarded each other silently for a moment, but apparently some kind of conversation had been had, because a slow smile crept over Thundercracker’s face and he nodded just once. Skywarp was bit more forward, grinning for all he was worth.

“Good for you, Scree.” Then he turned to the Prime and mock-whispered: “Gotta warn you though, he’s high maintenance.”

“We’re used to it.” Sideswipe jabbed his thumb towards his twin.

Ignoring the low-level shoving match that broke out between the frontliners, Soundwave addressed the Air Commander next:

“You are staying, then?”

“Sharp as always.” the seeker smirked.

Soundwave appeared contemplative for a moment. “May I inquire what brought on this… turnabout?”

Starscream regarded the former Decepticon tape deck for a moment. They hadn’t been on the best of terms back when they still were both serving under Megatron, but that had always been more due to their mutual paranoia and mistrust than any real dislike for one another. Now, sitting in the Ark’s rec room, that seemed to be a million vorns ago. And fresh starts seemed to be pretty much the order of the day…

He checked quickly from the corner of his optic that the others were still distracted by the scuffling twins, before answering. “Let’s just say that Optimus… rearranged my priorities.”

He had no doubt that the communications specialist would have been able to catch the implications of him using the Prime’s given name even if he wasn’t a telepath. A small quirk of the mech’s mouth (and wasn’t it strange to actually see it) proved that he had indeed at least guessed what was left unsaid. 

“Do you have… something specific planned?” The blue tape deck leaned sideways against Skyfire, who was fussing over Blaster, and brought a servo up to his chest plates, over his spark, while his head canted slightly towards the Prime. The movement was far too deliberate to be anything but a question. Maybe two questions, under the circumstances.

For a moment, Starscream turned inwards and felt for the tiny fleck of foreign presence in his spark. He hadn’t given it much thought the night before, but had been genuinely surprised when he came online that morning to find the speck his merging with the Prime had left behind to be warm and pulsing faintly, which could only mean that Optimus hadn’t terminated his end of their connection. The realization had made his spark curl around the merge-residue with a wash of mushy emotion he would never admit. 

As if in a response to the thought, Optimus looked up suddenly and glanced his way. He seemed confused and unsure, but when Starscream smiled at him, his face lit up with a smile.

Starscream turned back to his fellow former officer and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. Who knows?

“Now, speaking of plans,” the seeker smoothly changed the subject, noticing that the snark match was winding down and the other mechs in the room were starting to pay attention to their conversation “the coneheads are scheduled for a patrol flight today, right?”

The former Decepticon TIC checked his internal duty roster and nodded. “Yes. At 1400 hours local time, to be exact.”

“Expecting company?” Optimus set his cube down, noticing the calculating look in the red seeker’s optics. 

“They are likely to come within the comm range to ask why we haven’t returned to the Nemesis yet, at the least. As to what they’ll make of our ‘agreement’…” Starscream shrugged. 

“Well, I doubt they are too keen on returning to the base to bring the news that Megs has just lost most of his command structure.” Thundercracker supplied.

“True.” Soundwave commented with a small smirk.

Skywarp whined dramatically. “First he speaks like a normal mech, and now he’s smiling? I’m scared. Sunny, hold me!”

As Sunstreaker swore roundly at being tackled off the couch by the black seeker, Optimus hummed thoughtfully and turned back to Starscream. “Perhaps we should refashion the base to better suit for seekers. That might encourage them to join.”

“Come on, Optimus. You know that if we are going to have any hopes of avoiding the mistakes of the past, we have to start at the raw ore level. Let’s leave the talk about different tastes till we have addressed everyone’s basic needs, and that won’t happen until the war is over with, at any rate.”

The twins froze in the middle of their antics and stared at the former Air Commander with their mouths open.

“Oh Primus, it finally happened. He got so far into ‘con’, that he came out on the other side and landed back into ‘bot’.” Sideswipe muttered in awe. 

Starscream huffed. “Like you need to carry the right insignia to have a single circuit firing in you processor.”

As the twins returned to trying to pry a happily purring Skywarp off Sunstreaker’s chassis, Starscream noticed the Prime regarding him warmly.

“What?”

“Nothing, just… I never thought I’d live to see you and the twins of all bots getting along.”

“Getting all warm and fuzzy yet, you sap?” the red flyer smirked, but then sobered again.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope for as easy acceptance from the rest of your faction.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” the Prime’s optics narrowed a little and his voice took a lighter edge. “I’m sure Ironhide and Cliffjumper would be only too glad to give you a recap of the Ark code of conduct.”

The mild frown on the tri-colored seeker’s face turned into a full scowl. “If your big red sadist and his buddy the little red sadist so much as touch me, I’ll take the little glitch and use him to hit the big one.”

Later, Ratchet had to treat several crashed processors after bots had walked into the rec room to meet the sight of Soundwave laughing uproariously.


End file.
